Take a letter

It can often be difficult to discover exactly what teens are thinking. That’s why an online writing project, “Letters to the Next President,” is so interesting. Thousands of students across the US wrote letters to the presidential candidates on the issues that they feel are central to their future. Topics were chosen by the students themselves to reflect their specific personal, regional and age-related interests. Teachers and mentors guided students through the process of writing a persuasive letter or essay to the presidential candidates.

The project at www.letters2president.org was sponsored by the National Writing Project (www.nwp.org) and Google. Why would Google sponsor such an initiative? Because the students wrote their letters using Google’s online word processing application, “Google Docs.” Google is working hard to wean young tech users off their dependency on Microsoft Office.

Submarine cables to lower costs

New submarine cables that are being laid along the east coast of Africa will bring unprecedented connectivity options and related business opportunities to the region. According to an IDC study, "Submarine Internet Cables: The Race to Connect East Africa," four different cable projects will alleviate East Africa's dependence on expensive satellite broadband, a situation that has thus far contributed to scarcities in communications, education and market opportunities. Although the laying of the first cable by mid-2009 will immediately increase broadband availability, substantial price drops may only occur once additional cables provide competition.

“Governments in the region hope to use the new capacity to transform their economies. Land infrastructure projects abound as governments lay cable to bring capacity in from the coast, an especially important project for landlocked nations,” said Francis Hook, regional manager, IDC East Africa, and the author of the study. "Some governments are also stockpiling business capacity: for example, Kenya is already subsidizing communications costs for business process outsourcing (BPO) providers and establishing a BPO zone, ensuring that there will be a supply of labor in place once cheaper and more reliable broadband arrives."

Currently, only a handful of sub-Saharan countries along Africa's western coast are covered by the South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT-3/WASC), which provides via Portugal, European connections to Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola, and South Africa. Another segment of the project, SAT-2/WASC/South Asia Far East (SAFE), connects South Africa and Mauritius with India and Malaysia.

Besides the highly anticipated 2010 FIFA World Cup to be held in South Africa, operators and governments across the area are being driven to participate by the opportunities this impending shift in Internet availability will bring: a variety of new business models and acceleration of East Africa's integration into the global economy, among other changes. BPO is one such business model.

“Several countries in the region have fledgling BPO industries that take advantage of lower competition for educated workers than in the overheated Indian outsourcing market,” said Hook. “While India obviously has far greater scale, countries like Kenya or Uganda offer enough educated, English-speaking workers to appeal to medium-sized enterprises that would like to capture dedicated capacity by being the first to move into this region. Some stakeholders in cable projects also have outsourcing divisions in India, and are likely preparing to apply this expertise in East Africa.”

Digital map of India

While a GPS device might improve personal navigation in developed countries such as the US and UK, such devices are far less useful in developing nations where they really would be welcome due to a lack of marked streets and language barriers. But that situation is changing, as content providers search for new nations to map.

Tele Atlas has put forward its first major initiative for the subcontinent. Tele Atlas digital maps for India, includes 5,463 sub-districts, 593 districts and 35 states and union territories (UTs), plus detailed street level coverage for approximately 109,000 kilometers in eight major cities: Ahmadabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR (the National Capital Region, including Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Bahadurgarh as well), Hyderabad-Secunderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai (including Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan and Navi Mumbai) and Pune.

Tele Atlas’ India map offering covers the complete national highway network which includes expressways, national highways and state highways and encompasses approximately 162,000 kilometers. The initial product offering also includes more than 108,000 points of interest (POIs) to help deliver an enriched user experience. The product is available for partner application developers and device manufacturers in market segments such as personal navigation, automotive, Internet and wireless.

500 million go mobile

By the end of September 2010, there will be 500 million mobile subscriptions in India, according to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media's World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) database. The speed of growth has been remarkable. While it took 13 years for India to gain its first 250 million mobile subscriptions, forecasts from Informa indicate that the country's second 250 million subscribers will be added over a 30-month period.

“The bottom line is with a penetration rate of 26 percent, India is a hugely attractive investment destination, and will continue to be so for many years. Indeed, our forecasts suggest that the active subscription rate will remain well below 50 percent until 2010,” said Informa Principal Analyst Nick Jotischky.

Not only is India now the world’s second largest mobile market worldwide, but it is also the second fastest growth market after China. During the first six months of 2008, there were over 50 million net additions to India's mobile market, behind China on 53.6 million. Compare this with saturated markets such as the UK and France, where the number of net additions was 410,000 and 535,000 respectively.

There are several factors in India's phenomenal growth, as Jotischky explained, “India has the world’s lowest tariffs and supplies some of the cheapest handsets, both factors that have helped to drive consumer demand. Increased network coverage as operators expand their population coverage to rural parts of India has also played its part.”

India will soon enter a second phase of telecommunications growth. The Indian regulator is set to award 3G licenses to India's largest operators in 2009 and there should be a rapid take-up on the back of growing demand for data services. By the end of 2010, Informa predicts there will be 7.5 million W-CDMA connections, a figure that will leap to over 120 million by the end of 2013. The award of 3G licenses will be important to India's leading operators as this will allow them to differentiate their service offerings from those of their competitors as well as provide them with much-needed additional spectrum.