ICT

El desarrollo de la red de telefonía móvil en Colombia alcanzó un hito a mediados de junio a partir del lanzamiento en el país del primer servicio de tecnología 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution). La iniciativa representa uno de los primeros lanzamientos de 4G en América Latina y hace parte de una red de esfuerzos más grande que ha desarrollado el gobierno colombiano para disminuir la brecha digital e incrementar la penetración del Internet.

After almost two years of delay, Port Moresby is preparing for its imminent connection to Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) 10 gigabyte per second (GBps) fibre-optic gateway in Madang. Connected via a 750-km cable that will piggyback the ExxonMobil liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline, the new connection is expected to drastically reduce internet rates, thus serving as a catalyst for wholesale market change across the telecommunications sector.

The California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has published the long-awaited list of organisations seeking to obtain new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), commonly recognised as internet address endings or suffixes. Dubai eGovernment (DeG) is one of the more than 1900 applicants for gTLDs and is hoping to secure the recently dubbed dotDubai suffix.

The government is moving forward with one of its flagship projects, an initiative that aims to make the information and communications technology (ICT) sector – already a major contributor to the Malaysian economy – one of its largest components. However, if the state is to achieve its goals there are several issues to be addressed.

The information and communications technology (ICT) sector has benefitted from rising smartphone sales and expanding broadband reach, but further growth is contingent on infrastructure, particularly the expansion of the nation’s broadband capability and its integration with international networks.

The government has reiterated its commitment to speeding up the rollout of a national broadband network, in a bid to improve what is already some of the most developed telecommunications infrastructure on the continent. The information divide is still a concern, however, with country’s overall penetration rate still lagging behind some of its neighbours in terms of broadband access and price.