Showing 1 - 10 of 92
The fallout from Thaksin's judgement day and how it affects Thailand's telcos
Database, Don Sambandaraksa, Published on 10/03/2010
» Judgement day has come and gone and now mankind is left in the wake of seven hours of court judgement in minute detail of what our former Prime Minister has been up to and been found guilty of, and a lot of that revolves around the telecommunications sector.
Orwell would approve
Database, Published on 28/04/2010
» The troubles from the Iceland volcano gave one struggling industry a boost; Cisco Systems reported that the closing of all airports in Europe brought a big increase in the use of video conferences by people stuck on the ground; it was more of a claim than report — anecdotal, in the word of Cisco executive Fredrik Halvorsen — but it appeared that grounding airplanes was a big help for the videoconferencing sector; among those who didn’t get the word were the transport ministers of Europe, who whined that they could not hold an emergency meeting on stalled air traffic because they could not fly to some capital city for the meeting.
Completely in the dark
Database, Published on 05/05/2010
» The prime minister's TV show is called Having Confidence in Thailand but no one has much confidence in NBT Channel 11, the slavishly pro-government station; someone forced the station off the air for nine minutes just after the beginning of the Sunday morning show, and technical "experts" were in the dark about it, no pun intended; Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was just starting to explain his latest policy towards the red-shirt protesters when the screen went blank from what National Broadcasting Services of Thailand director Rattana Charonesak said was a stronger signal transmitted over the Channel 11 one; she admitted that she was completely in the dark about the incident, no pun intended.
Ministers sign computer-related crime MOU
Database, Suchit Leesa-nguansuk, Published on 23/06/2010
» The growing use of the Internet for criminal purposes which pose a threat to Thailand's national security and social development issues has driven the government to implement new initiatives to overcome these challenges and reconsider computer-crime-related legislation.
Censorship versus security
Database, Don Sambandaraksa, Published on 18/08/2010
» Freedom of speech, abuse of power by the government, and the new norms of a democratic society empowered by the Internet were all topics discussed by a wide variety of speakers at a seminar on the third anniversary of the Computer Misuse Act, often known as the Cybercrime law, hosted by the Thai Netizen Network, Media 4 Democracy and the Southeast Asia Press Alliance.
The case of the missing data privacy law
Database, Don Sambandaraksa, Published on 25/08/2010
» The problem with the computer crime law is not the law itself, but the fact that it was designed as a pair of laws and the thrust of criticism levelled at the law today is really a reflection of the missing data privacy law that was drafted alongside it - the yin to the cyber crime law's yang.
20th century boys
Database, Published on 06/10/2010
» After all that, the cabinet simply voted quickly to put the country firmly and finally and expensively on the road to the 20th century in mobile phone technology; it will cost you 19.98 billion baht for starters; without a whimper or a word of dissent, ministers voted to let your ToT build and service a 3G network, don't worry about all that stuff about bidding and licences and auction and regulators; the Democrat Party, which late last century gave you Thai Mobile, or SuthepNet, at a cost of mere tens of billions of baht, now presents JutiNet, at a cost still to be determined; chief sponsor of the surprise bill to "approve the ToT business plan" was Juti Krairiksh, the Minister of Internet Censorship for Thailand (MICT); under "the master plan", to coin a 20th century phrase, ToT will build 3G nodes that will cover Bangkok and at least 12 surrounding provinces with full 3G coverage; then the state-run firm will lease out the network, chiefly to virtual operators such as Samart Telecom; initial recipients of largesse from the cabinet decision, apart from politicians, will be ZTE and Huawei Technology, neither of which appeared embarrassed by previous revelations of their Thailand operations; immediately after the cabinet decision, ToT promised to hire some foreign firms to help them get started on the business plan, which they hadn't written yet.
Disappoint people at a rate they can endure
Database, Don Sambandaraksa, Published on 10/11/2010
» I wonder what Professor Jamison would think of our beloved National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). Quite a bit, I am sure, but he was tight-lipped when I asked him as he also works for the seven great ones in a consultancy position. Let's see.
In full view
Database, Published on 10/11/2010
» The Republic of Google sued the pitifully weak United States government for blocking Google's plans for domination of the universe; Washington allegedly disqualified Google from bidding on a $58 million contract to revamp the email systems at the US Department of the Interior _ 1.73 billion baht in real money; Google explained that it wanted to use Google Apps and the cloud for the job, while the whining government said that it wanted to use only software on disk and specifically the Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal made for government use by the Kingdom of Microsoft; Google explained that it could save US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars plus give them better software.
Open Source has won precisely because we no longer notice it
Database, Don Sambandaraksa, Published on 24/11/2010
» Open source has won. Oh, how time flies. When I started writing in Database in May 2003, my first column was about how the ICT Ministry had got the budget PC programme all wrong. ICT Minister Surapong had announced his great success at negotiating the inclusion of Windows XP and Office XP at just 1,500 baht, a 90 percent discount. He saw it as success. I saw it as capitulation.