Our policies and alliances bring broadband meaningfully to the “forgotten five billion.”
News Wrap in June 2012
June 28, 2012 |
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WHICH WAY FOR HUAWEI? Poor Cisco, Nokia Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent and other Western telecom venders: Huawei and ZTE are eating their lunch. Not able to match Chinese competitors’ low prices in tender bids, the Western companies ponder what to do. Their lobbyists claim Chinese companies are Trojan Horses that use cheap Chinese government financing to dominate foreign territory. After all, telecommunications is a strategic sector that may establish a path to Chinese dominance in many industries everywhere. Will a trade war loom? “I hope not,” says an anonymous Nokia Siemens exec, echoing common sentiments that are common among execs of ICT multinationals that have long dominated global markets.. “We don’t have to depend on litigation or cheap prices as long as governments give us a level playing field. We have superior management, better global R&D and access to the world’s best practices. Our origins may be from afar, but we are fully localized everywheret. We know how to anchor meaningful broadband ecosystems in each emerging market” “That argument is out of date,” counters a blunt Huawei exec, who I asked to comment. “We are now end-to-end providers. We’ve got products in each category. Our CSR activity is second to none. We are as local as they are. We are the future.” Hmmm. What do you think? |
June 20, 2012 |
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USAID AND CITICORP JOIN FOR THE UNBANKED : USAID, the American bilateral aid agency, is following a pattern it began six years ago when it joined forces with US technology and finance companies. The idea is to squeeze more value out of tight foreign aid budgets — while giving American multinationals a needed competitive boost in emerging markets. The pattern was set in 2007 when USAID helped Intel arrange Wimax trials in Viet Namese provinces. Now Intel’s new partner is Citibank. Last week, USAID joined a $27 million Citicorp deal to bring mobile money to many of the five billion unbanked citizens in remote places. Citicorp’s role is not yet clear, but the idea is to be a matchmaker between telcos and local banks, a terrain which is hotly competitive. |
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Achieving “Political Will” : The factor that most keeps citizens from receiving the benefits of the internet is not what you’d imagine – not lack of investment capital, not corruption, not weak infrastructure. That stuff is fixable or can be circumvented. A deeper problem is that most governments are led by officials who lack political will to implement their own roadmaps for bringing broadband to the masses. Read More |
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