Bridging the divide
Making various communication technologies relevant to people on the wrong side of this glaring digital divide is basically about providing information. After all, why would a small-scale farmer in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan want a mobile phone? Market information. Timely knowledge about who is buying potatoes today, what the buyers are willing to pay and where they are located can be vitally important to those who are just getting by. Computer are relatively expensive and not widespread in poorer areas and they also require the users to be literate - more importantly e-literate. However, mobile phone connectivity, with its ease of use, is easily adoptable, and, in nations plagued by connectivity lapses, this technology may well emerge as the key to bridging the divide.
The growth of mobile phones could rapidly bring the benefits of technology and communication networks to poor people. The prices have come down drastically, making cellular phones suitable for mass usage. However, in most areas around Southeast Asia, people have never had any connectivity, and in places where people have all the time but no money, it is not easy to ‘sell’ the concept of mobiles. Rural areas have specific needs. To consider:
• Is the mobile service need-based?
• Is it focused?
• Is it affordable?
It’s well-established that improving teledensity (the number of phones and cell phone towers in an area) provides more economic benefit than any other kind of infrastructure investment, including roads, electricity and even education. However, if mobile phones are only for providing communication services, it is unlikely that they would directly alleviate poverty and hence the adoption rates may not live up to expectations.
Mobile Services: Emerging Markets
Experts have found several areas in which mobile applications can be used to have a direct impact on the lives of rural people. These are primarily: health information, financial facilities, business development services, governance, and infotainment.
Business Development- Small businesses in rural areas often have to travel significant distances to markets or other places they can distribute their goods, and cannot make arrangements in advance with buyers or other sellers. Mobile phones could significantly change the logistical issues faced by rural traders and home entrepreneurs, by affording mobile-based ordering systems, delivery requests, and the ability to make more reliable and advance arrangements with business partners or clients.
Healthcare - New mobile services could better connect rural communities, creating networks to share and discuss health information and advice. Several such systems are already being researched.
Governance - Accessing information about public services remains a major challenge for many rural communities. Mobile phones provide a new platform through which rural communities will be able to access government information and services, using text, data, and audio browsing techniques.
Education - A range of educational services could be provided via mobiles to children in remote villages and communities. Mobile phones could serve as an essential means for children to become connected to one another for educational and peer-learning activities. These are particularly important for communities that are either nomadic or have been displaced due to a natural disasters, war, etc.
Banking – Mobile banking might help to serve the three billion people who currently have no access to financial services, according to the World Bank. Mobile phones are already being used in rural areas as a tool for financial transactions as the owners of the phones trade airtime for goods and services. Mobile networks and financial services institutions could work together to test and develop new financial services in this area and address how people can transfer these credits into cash.
Entertainment - While the mainstream entertainment industry is already well aware of the emerging potential of mobile media, there are also many opportunities for local, peer-to-peer content to be created and distributed, affording new cultural and economic opportunities to rural communities.
Innovation in mobile services
Several techniques have been tried out in an attempt to innovate and make mobile services suited to the needs of rural people. One such technique has been devised in Bangladesh where the concept of a “mobile lady” has been floated. The mobile lady with mobile phone in hand goes from door-to-door in villages giving poor people access by phone to advisers at help desks. The earnings from the “help line” services have been deemed enough to cover both fixed and variable costs and have been observed to be financially viable for the mobile lady. However, the financial viability problem for the help desk has not been resolved.
This experimentation in job-related content provided by telephone help desks has been making an impact on the livelihood of the poor people in rural Bangladesh since 2003. As the mobile lady moves door-to-door, the delivery of services and the promotion of services take place simultaneously.
Much like the mobile-lady, rural entrepreneurs have been encouraged all over South Asia to start up rural mobile phone centres with the help of micro-finance institutes which provide loans to these people for the initial capital expenditure.
Such an approach has also been started in rural areas in India where farmer help line numbers, accessible through mobile phones, are provided by advisers moving across fields, encouraging farmers to make calls using the mobile devices. This model has seen moderate success. Meanwhile, some farmers are able to receive better prices for their crops because they have access to information on market prices, primarily via mobile phones. And new technology is allowing the local villagers to sell mobile phone time to the poor in even smaller units - through prepay top-ups that are done through phone-to-phone links rather than using cards
As mentioned before, apart from the major towns, mobile coverage has remained fragmented and this has been in-part because the electricity network, used to power the mobile network infrastructure, is often unreliable and does not cover the whole of the country. For instance, one third of Indian homes are not connected to the power grid and demand for mobile phones is growing rapidly. A pilot scheme has been started in India, wherein mobile firms hope to overcome some of these problems by using mobile base stations that use generators running on biodiesel. Crops grown in the area will be used to generate biodiesel to fuel the stations.
The impact of mobile phones
An enormous number of people, including taxi drivers and tradesmen, now rely on mobile phones to run their small businesses. The mobile phone boom has transformed ordinary people into micro-entrepreneurs.
Increased mobile phone usage has created a socio-psychological change amongst users. Studies show that users perceive themselves to have entered the modern public sphere when they can get access to information and services, and participate in up-streaming of information. They become contactable, locatable, and traceable for institutions who want to improve their livelihood. They feel that they have better credibility and creditworthiness when they have a mobile phone. Family relationships and social networks are strengthened as people can better maintain ties with people that don’t live nearby.
The way ahead
Despite success, mobile-phone based service delivery systems have had a number of limitations to date:
• Limited services: Generally only help-line and commercial phone services are available in most poor countries with developing communications networks;
• Financial Sustainability: The cost of mobile phone service and equipment have been dropping in price, so there is threat to the financial viability and the average revenue per user is low. This has meant that service providers have not catered as much to poorer areas.
• Lack of local content: Local content generation is not an easy task as traditionally these areas have lacked services directed towards them and there isn’t an inherent interest among a population unfamiliar with this sort of content.
• National policies: Even though most nations have recognized the power of mobiles, the laws in place still favour traditional service providers and efforts have to be made to foster development and better serve the rural masses.
The importance of information and communication technology to populations in the rural and remote areas is undeniable. Several new business models are being developed which would increase the penetration levels of mobile phone service and ensure that the products are better tailored to users. The challenge is to learn from both the successes and the failures to move ahead!
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