Prometheus unbound: 20 years of communication policy research

In this article I review 20 years of writing on communication policy in Prometheus. I examine the contribution Prometheus has made to three areas of knowledge about communication policy: communication itself, its histories, and broad notions of communication policy; telecommunications; and new communication technology. I suggest that it is in the latter two areas focusing on the technological dimensions of communication policy, that the journal has consistently contributed genuinely innovative work. Here the journal has fostered interdisciplinary writing and enquiry where policy and technology developments most required critique and new ideas.     

ESB在电信行业中应用的研究与实现

ESB可以去除不同服务应用之间存在的技术差异,可以让不同的应用服务器相互协调运作,以实现不同服务应用之间的整合和通信.OSB是Oracle的ESB产品,居于业界领先地位.中国移动某公司启动了服务接口平台的重构工作.基于ESB平台构建统一的服务接口总线,实现不同接入协议的适配,实现流量控制,不同数据报文格式的转换.并实现客户端的统一管理,提供各种安全认证机制.     

THE BERMUDA AGREEMENT ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS 1945

The end of the Second World War saw global telecommunications governance renegotiated. The dominant British Imperial (later Commonwealth) network experienced multiple changes: the tightly integrated and collaborative imperial governance system fell away as the governing partners increasingly pursued their own, rather than a collective agendas and as the ‘imperial’ company, Cable and Wireless', dominance gave way to a competition and interconnection based regime as American firms and their networks entered markets hitherto closed to them. Though key elements of the Bermuda Telecommunications Agreement 1945 were soon to be renegotiated, the Bermuda Conference, at which the imperial partners and the new hegemonic power, the USA, bargained, was the fulcrum transitional event. Drawing on archival sources (notably in Canada and the UK) the author tells of the tensions within the fragmenting Imperial partnership, of an American mix of interest and idealism and of this episode in telecommunications liberalisation foreshadowing later changes.     

单边纯捆绑的质量研发效应研究——基于电信竞争的视角

垄断企业捆绑销售的多维度效应已有不少理论研究,现实市场也不乏此类案例。然而,在捆绑的诸多效应中,对于研发效应的研究成果并不丰富。以捆绑在电信竞争中的研发效应为例,基于一个纵向差异化模型,在“垄断-寡头”的市场结构下研究垄断企业独立产品捆绑销售对市场价格、市场竞争性的影响,以及存在研发竞争时对竞争性产品研发激励的影响。研究发现：垄断企业捆绑销售都会带来更激进的价格竞争,降低竞争者的市场份额和利润;独立销售条件下垄断企业的研发投入大于竞争者的研发投入,捆绑销售条件下垄断企业的研发投入小于竞争者的研发投入。因此,捆绑降低了垄断企业相对于竞争者的研发激励。     

基于EPON的用电信息采集系统应用研究

在电力用户用电信息采集系统中,EPON由于自身的特点及优势,有着广泛的应用前景。本文根据EPON系统的技术特点和电力抄表的业务要求,提出了一种基于EPON技术的用电信息采集系统方案,并基于多种应用场景对带宽需求进行了分析。分析结果表明,EPON技术能够满足多种应用场景的带宽需求,为用电信息采集系统的建设提供了有力的支撑。     

Studying the meaning of giftedness: Inspiration from the field of cognitive psychology

Despite efforts to create alternative strategies to identify students from diverse backgrounds, there remains a disproportionately small minority representation in programs for the academically gifted. One reason for this discrepancy may be the effect of teachers’ theories of giftedness on how they nominate students for gifted programming. However, very little research has been conducted on teachers’ individual theories of giftedness. Inspiration for new ways of conducting research on theories of giftedness may come from research on concept and category formation from the field of cognitive psychology.     

Review and redesign of the curriculum of a Masters programme in telecommunications engineering – Towards an outcome-based approach

This article presents the methodology and results of the curriculum review of the Masters of Science programme in Wireless Communications offered by the Telecommunications Engineering Department at Yarmouk University in Jordan. The review is based on expert opinion collected through questionnaires and meetings about the programme and focuses on two main aspects: the first is relevance of the programme to the needs of local and regional telecommunications industry and the second is comparability to similar programmes in the EU.

Through an extensive analysis of the collected data, a set of recommendations for improvement of the existing curriculum was developed. These recommendations were then used to redesign the curriculum with regard to contents, teaching methodology and assessment.     

Consumer Information Requirements and Telecommunications Regulation

Consumers can be disadvantaged and suffer detriment when information is withheld, when there is deception in the information provided, or when information is too difficult for consumers to obtain or evaluate. While information provision is often favored as a policy/regulatory tool to address “market failure,” it can have its own failings and drawbacks. For instance, the volume of information presented can contain its effectiveness. While the demand-side analysis indicates that actual consumer behavior exhibits systematic departures from the “rational” behavior assumed by conventional (neoclassical) economics, behavioral economics goes further in questioning whether additional information is always useful. It challenges some of the presumptions of conventional economics that consumers make their choices coherently and rationally. This article incorporates such considerations in proposing measures (including regulatory initiatives) that could improve the information made available to telecommunications consumers.     

Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature

This paper reviews roughly 200 recent studies of mobile (cellular) phone use in the developing world, and identifies major concentrations of research. It categorizes studies along two dimensions. One dimension distinguishes studies of the determinants of mobile adoption from those that assess the impacts of mobile use, and from those focused on the interrelationships between mobile technologies and users. A secondary dimension identifies a subset of studies with a strong economic development perspective. The discussion considers the implications of the resulting review and typology for future research.     

The Internet,Spatial Data Globalization,and Data Use: The Case of Tibet

The World Bank has been the largest multilateral source of rural telecommunications financing in developing countries since the mid-1960s. This article analyzes World Bank-sponsored studies of rural telecommunications initiatives in Chile, Peru, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia to identify which lessons the bank draws from them and recommends for other countries. The World Bank's preference for a “best practice” approach in its research leads it to attribute successes and failures to a narrow scope of factors that tend to agree with its economic policy priorities. Instead, rural telecommunications practices should be analyzed within their broader socio-institutional and cultural contexts in order to enable cross-situational applications, and a broad array of stakeholders should be involved in shaping the lessons learned.