Developing countries should accede to the World Trade Organization Information Technology Agreement expansion to drive innovation and broaden international commerce, said a post to the Intel blog Thursday. “In the long term, ITA empowers the formation of a global [information and communication technology] supply chain as participating countries benefit both from cheaper imports of components and materials, as well as from exporting finalized products.” An expansion of the agreement covering additional products worth about $1.3 trillion per year was completed at the WTO Nairobi Ministerial Conference in December (see 1512160046).
Governments, regulators, investors and industry need to work together on 5G, said Graham MacDonald, Intel director-Europe, Middle East and Africa policy, in a blog post urging the European Commission to show leadership. “In many instances, inflexible regulations can take an extraordinary amount of time to amend,” he said Thursday. “One of the biggest concerns is whether there will be sufficient spectrum in low, mid and high bands available for 5G to deliver the key usage scenarios envisaged." The EC should establish a timetable for the launch of 5G networks by the end of 2018 and of fully commercial 5G services by the end of 2020, he said.
Governments that shut down internet applications and services cost countries $2.4 billion in gross domestic product from July 1 last year to June 30 this year, Brookings Institution said. In a paper Thursday, Brookings Center for Technology Innovation Founding Director Darrell West estimated the GDP impact of 81 short-term shutdowns in 19 countries. “In recent years, a number of countries have blocked particular applications, shut down specific services (e.g. instant messaging and voice over internet protocol calling), turned off mobile telecommunications services, or disrupted the entire internet,” he wrote. “Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria.” West said he considered reductions in economic activity but not tax losses or drops in investor, business and consumer confidence.
Asia is poised to become the growth engine for mobile, with an estimated 1 billion additional people expected to connect to mobile networks by 2020, GSMA reported. About a third of the new users will come from India, an estimated 337 million, “underlining the country’s increasing position as the world’s most significant mobile growth market, overtaking China,” GSMA said. China is projected to add more than 200 million subscribers, with major net subscriber contributions expected from Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. “These six Asian markets will account for approximately 60 per cent of the 1.1 billion new subscribers added globally by the end of the decade,” GSMA said. Another major trend is that mobile internet is now the internet, GSMA said. “Today 46 per cent of the global population is using mobile phones to access the internet, a figure forecast to increase to 60 per cent by 2020,” the report said. "As there will only be a minimal increase in the number of fixed internet households over this period, the increase in mobile phone ownership will therefore be the key factor driving global internet penetration.” GSMA said even in low-income markets, the smartphone is “king,” and smartphones may now be the most commonly owned consumer electronics device globally. “In the UK, for example, smartphone penetration now stands at 71 per cent of mobile connections,” the report said. “This compares to 60-70 per cent across the rest of Europe, 75 per cent in the US, and above 80 per cent in some Asian markets such as South Korea and Singapore.” Smartphone growth has plateaued in most developed markets, GSMA said. “By contrast, the smartphone adoption rate in India stands at only 25 per cent and unit volumes are growing by 30 per cent a year.”
IBM is plugging $200 million, out of a $3 billion global investment, into the worldwide headquarters for its Watson IoT business in Munich, it said in a news release. The investment is in response to growing demand from customers looking to incorporate IoT and artificial intelligence technologies, it said Monday. The HQ will be home to cognitive IoT Collaboratories, described as hands-on industry labs where clients and partners work with 1,000 IBM researchers, engineers, developers and business experts on automotive, electronics, manufacturing, healthcare and insurance. The goal is to apply new concepts and technologies; build IoT solutions; develop and test new business models, solutions and services; and “push the boundaries of what is possible with IoT,” said IBM.
The Commerce Department is studying economic impacts of cross-border data flows driven by the internet, NTIA said in a Friday blog post. NTIA and the Economics Statistics Administration also released a report, Measuring the Value of Cross-Border Data Flows. “These data flows are happening and we know they are having an increasingly significant effect on the economy,” NTIA said. “Solid statistical foundations for measuring the economic impact of cross-border data flows do not currently exist.” The report highlights ongoing efforts to measure data flows, including a Bureau of Economic Analysis project to refine measurement of services that can be traded using information and communication technologies. BEA and NTIA also started a three-year study to define industries and commodities comprising the digital economy so it can estimate contribution to Gross Domestic Product. Next steps for the department: (1) Improve coverage and quality of government statistics on the service sector; (2) develop standard nomenclature and definitions for concepts on cross-border data flows; (3) better understand how firms use data flows and their economic value; (4) develop improved and consistent macro-economic statistics to measure the value of the data flows and the digital economy, including impact to GDP; (5) continue dialog between the department and industry to facilitate data sharing; and (6) continue collaboration between Commerce and international organizations to spread the metrics.
The average internet connection speed globally increased 14 percent year-over-year to 6.1 Mbps in Q2, Akamai said in a news release Thursday. But the average speed decreased 2.3 percent compared with the previous quarter, the networking vendor reported. Global average peak speed increased 2.5 percent year-over-year to 36 Mbps, Akamai said. Adoption of above 10 Mbps speeds increased 0.7 percent to 35 percent quarter-over-quarter, but adoption of above 15 Mbps speeds dropped 0.8 percent to 21 percent and above 25 Mbps speeds dropped 2.1 percent to 8.3 percent, it said.
T-Mobile is extending and expanding its “summer travel bonus” program giving customers unlimited high-speed data throughout South America and in 19 European countries until 2017, it said Wednesday. The program starts Saturday, it said in a Wednesday news release.
TomTom said its partner Peugeot adopted 3D Maps and TomTom Traffic for its i-Cockpit experience, which will make its car debut in the Peugeot 3008 launching at the Paris Motor Show, said a news release. Peugeot’s i-Cockpit uses an 8-inch touch screen and head-up instrument panel with a 12-inch display. TomTom’s NavKit technology offers the option of transferring navigation and direction indications directly onto the head-up screen, said the company. TomTom also announced the European debut of its Localisation Demonstrator that uses HD Map and RoadDNA technology to provide lane-level localization. The device uses sensors like those expected to be used in autonomous vehicles, said a TomTom announcement.
Content services provider Vubiquity signed a contract extension with Virgin Media to manage content licensing and digital content supply chain matters for Virgin Media's on-demand video services in the U.K. and Ireland, it said in a news release Wednesday: Vubiquity will continue to license movies from studios for Virgin Media's VOD service Virgin Movie and provide various digital content supply chain services.