Using a survey of 1774 users and non-users in 84 slums in three metropolitan cities (Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata), we try to understand the impact of mobiles on their social and economic lives. Urban slum dwellers spend significant amounts on communications, both for a first time acquisition of...

The telecom sector has seen much change during the past two decades. At first, it was the opening up of the equipment manufacturing sector, followed by the corporatisation of the government owned entities, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL)....

Despite the tremendous growth of mobile services in most developing countries, these have largely remained limited to urban areas. This has further aggravated the existing urban and rural divide. Policy makers and regulators perceive the need for an effective regulatory and policy environment to...

The implementation of geographically dispersed computer-communication projects involving large financial outlays is a complex task, more so in a developing country context. This paper is focused around a case study which highlights some of the issues in the context of Indian Railways decision to...

The Passenger Reservation System of Indian Railways is a major computer application in a visible, consumer sensitive area. The involves a distributed database, spread over five host computers located in five metropolitan cities in India, and terminals located in more than 22 cities. The...

The commercial potential of wireless applications has brought spectrum policies to the forefront of regulatory arena. In the context of rapidly increasing demands on spectrum, regulators have to adopt refarming so as to be able to provide spectrum for new services. A variety of models have been...

The Thai economy has been registering high economic growth rates since late eighties. The average growth rate has been around 10 percent per annum. Consequently, the business opportunities have increased, creating a demand for greater telecom services. However, the investments in telecom sector...

The Malaysian economy has been growing rapidly, with concomitant demand for telecom services. With a view to reducing the role of the government in economy and introducing efficiency, the government planned to corporatize public sector organizations as a first step forward privatization. The...

The commercial potential of wireless applications has brought spectrum policies to the forefront of regulatory arena. The visibility of the telecom sector and the prior experience of 3G licensing in Europe and UK have made several Asian regulators and policy makers wary of using auctions. This...