I'm here at SAPPHIRE NOW in Frankfurt, but I'm seeing news reports that a Latvian parliamentary committee is pushing changes in the Law on Electronic Media that would allow regional and small municipal television stations to defy the European Union (EU) mandated switch to all-digital terrestrial broadcasting and continue broadcasting in analog until the end of 2013.
This would throw a wrench into plans to use frequencies freed up by the digital switchover for wireless broadband (possibly 3G) and risk loosing Latvia some EUR 19 million in EU funds earmarked for wireless broadband.
A Ministry of Transport official said that Latvia, in effect was throwing away its digital dividend. Building out wireless broadband in the countryside (and it is countryside folk who parliamentarians are trying to spare the expense of decoders for the digital switchover) without EU support at a later date will be significantly more expensive.
I don't have all the details, but it looks like a typical provincial f**kwit move that will backfire on those it was supposed to benefit.
Showing posts with label wireless internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wireless internet. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Swedish expert on the future of wireless broadband
Jens Zander, a professor of radio communications at the Royal Institute of Technology and head of the research institute wireless@kth, recently talked to me about the future of wireless broadband technologies.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Some things that should be done by Midsummer
The Latvian version of the Midsummer bachanalia, called Jāņi, is also a marker for when political and major economic activity take a break for the summer, just as in the Nordic countries. So I have made a list of things that should be cleared in the Latvian telecoms "space" up by June 23, just a few weeks off.
1) The government should declare its position on the proposal by Lattelecom for a management and staff buyout of the whole company. TeliaSonera, the half-mother, has already indicated it favors the idea. With the Swedish government proposing an immediate sale of 8 % of TeliaSonera, it would be good for potential buyers to know that the Swedish group was getting out of a potential stranded investment for a reasonable price.
2) I am hoping to hear something about faster wireless internet speeds from Triatel and/or the GSM operators. This is personal -- I want to set up something at my summer house in Carnikava that has a reasonable speed compared to my 10 Mbps Riga DSL connection. Maybe I can get an extra DSL over my fixed phone line? Triatel has hinted at an upgrade of at least some of its EV DO network from the present maximum speed of 1 Mps.
Bite's 3.6 Mbps HSDPA (or a similar speed from Latvian Mobile Telephone) would be interesting, too. My present operator, Tele2 (via LETA) has not announced that it is expanding HSDPA coverage outside Riga (as yet).
A Latvian blogger with the nickname onkulis complains that Triatel has set an unannounced limit of 5 gigabytes (GB) per month download, despite professing to offer "unlimited" internet. Technologically, it may be necessary to ration wireless bandwidth in the face of BitTorrent junkies, but this sould be made explicit. Sorry, Triatel, you can be the first among many operators in Europe to tell it like it is with the fine print (my son, in Sweden, hit a ceiling on a 10 Mps fixed broadband connection).
3) Finally, my pre-Jāņi wish list includes at least one decent (at extra cost, if you please) international film channel on Lattelecom's IPTV service. The Bollywood channel now on the list doesn't count and I have yet to see what the video-on-demand film offerings are like ( I had to return my Ruckus wireless test set up, which worked fine as far as the TV went, but presented problems with using the internet at the same time).
1) The government should declare its position on the proposal by Lattelecom for a management and staff buyout of the whole company. TeliaSonera, the half-mother, has already indicated it favors the idea. With the Swedish government proposing an immediate sale of 8 % of TeliaSonera, it would be good for potential buyers to know that the Swedish group was getting out of a potential stranded investment for a reasonable price.
2) I am hoping to hear something about faster wireless internet speeds from Triatel and/or the GSM operators. This is personal -- I want to set up something at my summer house in Carnikava that has a reasonable speed compared to my 10 Mbps Riga DSL connection. Maybe I can get an extra DSL over my fixed phone line? Triatel has hinted at an upgrade of at least some of its EV DO network from the present maximum speed of 1 Mps.
Bite's 3.6 Mbps HSDPA (or a similar speed from Latvian Mobile Telephone) would be interesting, too. My present operator, Tele2 (via LETA) has not announced that it is expanding HSDPA coverage outside Riga (as yet).
A Latvian blogger with the nickname onkulis complains that Triatel has set an unannounced limit of 5 gigabytes (GB) per month download, despite professing to offer "unlimited" internet. Technologically, it may be necessary to ration wireless bandwidth in the face of BitTorrent junkies, but this sould be made explicit. Sorry, Triatel, you can be the first among many operators in Europe to tell it like it is with the fine print (my son, in Sweden, hit a ceiling on a 10 Mps fixed broadband connection).
3) Finally, my pre-Jāņi wish list includes at least one decent (at extra cost, if you please) international film channel on Lattelecom's IPTV service. The Bollywood channel now on the list doesn't count and I have yet to see what the video-on-demand film offerings are like ( I had to return my Ruckus wireless test set up, which worked fine as far as the TV went, but presented problems with using the internet at the same time).
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