old wine…new bottle

Pepsi is holding a can design competition. They provide you with the cans general design and some accessories which you can add to the can any which way you like. Visitors to the site will then be asked to vote for the best design. They will probably use your design if its good. Try it out at  http://www.pepsiarabia.com/DesignYourCan/Default_en_gb.aspx

Who’s gonna pay for this call..?

Finally, Kuwait has joined the world in implementing true CPP or calling party pays. Well, the mobile to mobile phone calls were already free, but calls originated from the PSTN network were paid for by the receiver. This was simply because the PSTN calls were free, The mobile network was being used and somebody had to pay for that. But this model takes it into a totally new era where the calling party doesn’t pay if the call is originated from a PSTN line.

The operator will lose out on revenue generated from calls originated from PSTN lines, and all those who have a PSTN line will use that to make a call to the mobiles, except when a mobile to mobile call is absolutely necessary.

Is this the effect of competition or just another multilateral agreement between the operators to level the playing field or was it just pulling the rug out from under the new operator in town. Either way, a huge chunk of the revenue from these calls will be off the books.

If the telecom sector is liberalized further and these cellular operators are allowed to use VOIP or their own gateway, they will be able to generate more revenue from international calls, and perhaps cut down on the menace of illegal internet telephony.

Let it burn..

land under tobacco cultivation: source WHO

Agflation is here to stay and is something we will have to live with. But what causes it is now questionable. A total of 125 countries have put close to over 4 million hectares of land under tobacco cultivation. Tobacco has no other use except in cigarettes and cigars, which cause cancer and pollution.  5 countries; namely USA, India, China, Turkey and Brazil account for over 2/3rds of the worlds tobacco production.

Now if this land were used to grow crops which could be converted to biofuels and feed the hungry, we would have lower pollution and found an answer to, in some way, reduce the problem of world hunger. Yet the chosen crop is Tobacco, carcinogenic, addictive and polluting. Annual cigarette sales are too large to ignore tobacco and focus on cleaner air and hunger…let it burn!!