Business, OSS, Sri Lanka, India, Global: Modern telcos are faced with operational challenges: convergence, consolidation lower voice revenues and pressure for quick launch are some that come to mind. Clarity, founded 14 years ago, is one company with solutions to offer - and recent experience in Sri Lanka...

Analysis, Microfinance: Grameen Foundation recently announced a new online assistance center to help microfinance institutions (MFIs) bring the benefits of telecommunications to poor communities around the world...

Education, Uganda, Africa: Following its successful conference this February, the Women of Uganda Network is leading a drive both for greater female involvement in ICT and also for women to set up more businesses. We look at an all-too-rare initiative...

Internet, Agriculture, Peru: Farming in the Huaral, a coastal valley in Peru, has always been a marginal operation, not least because the Huaral has a desert climate where it never rains. Any plan to improve the conditions of local farmers has to keep them informed of changing conditions. The Sistema de Información Agraria (SIA, Agrarian Information System), is a new decentralised structure create to collect and organise data using ICT technologies...

Markets, Bulgaria, Romania, CEE: Who has the world’s largest economy? The “New” Europe is the answer, according to HP. This new European Union, which now includes Bulgaria and Romania, represents nearly half a billion people. In order to realise its full potential, member states will have to embrace certain changes...

Spearheaded by the arrival of real-time billing systems, billing is now a dynamic force with strategic implications and major repercussions for operators worldwide. Operators and subscribers in emerging markets, including those in the Asia-Pacific region, are among those enjoying the powerful benefits of real-time billing. Haim Kantor, Associate Vice President of the Real-time billing division of Comverse sets the scene.

The WiMAX Forum is defining a common global standard for the certification of interoperable, high-performance, IP-based broadband wireless equipment supporting fixed, nomadic, and mobile applications. IEEE standards define Phy and MAC layers; the WiMAX Forum chooses a subset of features within the IEEE standards to define interoperability requirements...