Here, there and everywhere (K2 #81)

Question of the Week
I bought the Galaxy Grand Duos smartphone but found out that it does not work in Bhutan. What can I do? Will it help if I “root” the device?
— Samten Dhendup, Sr. Survey Engineer, NLC

Answer
The Galaxy Grand Duos model that is sold in India supports the 3G bands of 900, 1900, and 2100. The bands used for 3G by Bhutan’s operators are 850 and 2100. Thus, wherever 850 is used (Thimphu, Paro and a few other locations), your phone will not be able to use 3G. This is a limitation of the phone’s hardware, and “rooting” the phone – which means gaining complete control of the smartphone’s software – will not help. In fact, it often means voiding the manufacturer's warranty as well as running others risks, including making the phone totally unusable. Due to BICMA’s user-unfriendly decision to use the North American band of 850 instead of the standard Asian 900 band, quite a few other Bhutanese customers are in your situation and will need to buy new, expensive phones; if it’s any consolation, they say shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Question of the Week
Is the Sherig Collection available online? How can I download it?
— Yeshi Choden

Answer
The Sherig Collection is a set of educational resources for teachers and students in Bhutan. It includes offline Wikipedia, thousands of educational videos, Dzongkha dictionaries, e-books, audio books, exam banks and more. It can be installed on any Windows computer - no Internet required. The size of the collection is pretty big - it’s about 25 GB, and it is not available online. Why? Given the speed and stability of broadband Internet in Bhutan, it would take days to download the Collection (assuming that the connection or the power did not drop half way, in which case you’d have to start all over again…). The only practical way to get the software is by copying it using an external hard drive or a 32 GB pen drive. You can get the software in many schools in Bhutan. For more information, register at sherig.rigsum-it.com.

With the new school year starting soon, let me take the opportunity and wish all teachers, students and parents a happy year of learning!

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Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

Bhutan's 3G band: the saga continues

I have written before on the questionable selection of the 850 MHz for use with 3G in Bhutan, instead of the more consumer-friendly 900 MHz which is used in India and other SE Asian countries. Recently, Kuensel reporter Gyaltshen K. Dorji ran a comprehensive story on this topic, An iffy 3G-frequency choice?, in which I was quoted.

Is a BICMA decision impacting Bhutan's inflation?

As a country's radio spectrum is a limited and highly-valuable resource, governments pay a lot of attention to its management and allocation. I already wrote a few posts about BICMA's decision to allocate the north American 850 band for 3G networks in Bhutan (in addition to 2100) instead of the SE Asian bands of 900/2100. But I have not touched on its effect on the country's economy. Here are a few points to consider:

• Stale Inventory: 3G phones available in Bhutan's mobile shops are imported from India. While roaming a little around town yesterday, I found that many 3G phones do not support the 850/2100 bands, and are thus as good as 2G phones. Many dealers are not aware of the frequency issue (why?), so the wrong phones were/are imported. Some savvy consumers are deciding not to buy these phones. Others find out that their new phone doesn't support 3G and exchange it with a more expensive phone. Dealers in Bhutan are now stuck with lakhs-and-lakh-of-rupees worth of obsolete inventory which was (or perhaps still is) imported from India. Given the rate with which new phone models are launched, the value of these phones is constantly dropping.
• Trade Balance: 3G phones supporting 900/2100 can now be bought for less than Rs 5,000 (for example, the Nokia 208 Dual SIM). In contrast, Indian-imported phones that support 850/2100 are much more expensive, usually starting at around Rs 20,000. The result: more rupees leaving the country.
• Inflation: Mobile phones are now part of Bhutan's Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket. More and more people are switching from 2G phones to 3G phones. For many in Bhutan, a mobile phone is their most valuable asset. Instead of buying a 3G phone for Nu 5000 to Nu 10,000, many consumers now spend Nu 20,000 and above for a phone that supports 3G in Bhutan. People are spending more on 3G phones than they should have. While I do not have the details of the weight of mobile phones in the new CPI basket, the net result is that there's a good chance BICMA's decision has contributed to Bhutan's inflation.

Does the Samsung Galaxy Grand support 3G?

Following my last K2 column, I got a lot of queries regarding the highly-rated, relatively affordable Samsumg Galaxy Grand smartphone: Will it support 3G in Bhutan?

Well, if we look up the phone's specification on gsmarena.com, we'll find the following (the snapshot is from the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos I9082 (dual-SIM) version; the I9080 (single SIM) 3G specs are identical):

Looking carefully, one sees two different specs for the 3G network bands: the first line shows 850/1900/2100, the second has 900/1900/2100.

From the research I've done, the reason is simple: Samsung has released two Galaxy Grand variants. One version is mainly for the Asian & European market (900/1900/2100) market, the other mainly for the US market (850/1900/2100).

The bands used for 3G in Bhutan are 850 and 2100. While all 3G phones sold in India support 2100, most of these phones do not support 850, as India uses 900 and 2100. If you got your Galaxy Grand in India, it will NOT support 850 3G in Bhutan.

The phone's packaging will show the exact bands supported, as you can see below. In this case, the phone supports 900, but not 850 - so it will NOT support 3G in Thimphu and and a few other locations in Bhutan.

BICMA's Website Penetrated

A hacker calling himself Terminal_Pk recently penetrated BICMA's website. This is not the first time official websites have been hacked in Bhutan (see here). The website of the Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority is hosted on a shared DrukNet server, which also serves many other websites in Bhutan.

Meanwhile, troubling news from the other side of the world: Hackers penetrated NASA computers 13 times last year.

Hat tip to Aby Tharakan who first tweeted about the BICMA hacking.