Global Cloud Xchange - PacNet alumni?

Reliance Globalcom has being reborn as Global Cloud Xchange. It could finally be becoming a more competitive and international outfit after many years in the wilderness. What's interesting is the senior management are all ex-pacnet's guys. People like Bill Barney who rise like a phoenix to become once again the CEO of GCX, Wifred Kwan as CTO and Ivy Chan and CMO.

Network Readiness Index

Here's the list of the top 10 countries that use infocomm technology to improve economic productivity and social development. Not surprisingly the Scandinavian countries are among the top again except Denmark (#13). What's surprising is that an Asian country is top 2 and that's Singapore. 

State of the Internet

Akamai has released its latest state of the internet report. Surprisingly Indonesia has the 2nd lowest speed in Asia.

What's worst is the response from the Minister of Communication and Information Tifatul Sembiring. Through his Twitter account, he responded with a question," Fellow twitters, what would you use the internet for if its speed is faster? ... :) *IWantToKnowSoMuch* ". 

This must be the ultimate insult and embarrassment to many indonesians who are very tech savvy (no 4 in the world with Facebook subscribers). Talking about ignorance or competence ....

Here's the rest of the report...

Tribute to Happy Zhang Hua Lian of China Telecom

  

Our thoughts and prayers are with Happy Zhang, her family and to

 all on Malaysia Airlines MH370.

New World Number 1 in IP backbone

It's official. We have now a new world number 1 in IP backbone. It is TeliaSonera, the Swedish Giant. They are really growing fast considering where they were a few years ago. Word is that they hired the best kick-ass salesperson in the market and literally just move up the ranking. Well done, It wasn't too long ago that Level 3 was known as the internet. Now TeliaSonera has proven it is possible to kick Level 3 out of the top spot. Hope they stay there long enough.

Layoffs for GTT/Inteliquent

Not long after the acquisition by GTT of Inteliquent, a major layoffs was carried out. They layoff up to 30-40% of the ex-Inteliquent staffs sometime last month including some of the founding members based in Italy. Many of the critical support staffs are gone which left customers in the lurch and confused.

Looks like no industry is safe and surely not Telecommunications. A pity and farewell to the once rising star called Tinet. This blog posting is a tribute to that little company that challenges the giants of the Telecommunications world.

Myanmar Picks Telenor and Ooredoo

The win by Telenor is expected as they are really strong contender and operates several mobile operations around the world, including a few in Asia. They also owns DTAC (Thailand), Digi (Malaysia), Grameenphone (Bangladesh), Uninor (India). Most of which are doing very well except Uninor. 

The dark house is surely Ooredoo which is formerly Qatar Telecom. This is a surprise as one would think that it has to be the japanese. Their PM came recently and waived off all the debts plus pledging new loans. If I am KDDI, it must surely hurt. Well, this is not the first time the Japanese was trying to leave some legacy in this country. Remember the Burma Railway (aka death railway)? That's the most famous or infamous contributions here.  I think the debt the Japanese owes to Asia is far more that whatever they can write off. 

However, one wonders how does Ooredoo won it then. Could it be related to any of the Oil or Gas potential Myanmar has? Qatar definitely has the oil and gas expertise and Myanmar the untapped supply....That's got to be even more profitable than Telecommunications. We shall see soon....

Anyway, congratulations to the 2 winners to one of the very last frontier of Telecommunications (the other one may be North Korea).