Grameen’s famous Village Phone Program lifted thousands out of poverty– and helped Muhammad Yunus win the Nobel Peace Prize. The problem: It’s not working anymore.
According to Grameen Telecom, the GrameenPhone affiliate that manages the program, profits per operator have been declining for years and in 2006 averaged less than $70. “The program is not dead,” says its manager, Mazharul Hannan, chief of technical services at Grameen Telecom, “but it is no longer a way out of poverty.”
The reason is simple: Technology and GrameenPhone itself have made the village phone obsolete. Access to cell phones has expanded rapidly across Bangladesh, as in other developing nations. GrameenPhone, largest of the nation’s six cellular providers, has more than 13 million subscribers, with yearly revenues of nearly $700 million.…
Despite having no license and enjoying 50% subsidized airtime, Grameen Telecom’s Village Phone project is no longer viable in Bangladesh due to fierce competition. Senegal’s telecenters are disappearing for the same reason.
In the backdrop this trend, Qualcomm has worked with local authorities to launch a wireless connectivity for rural medical and educational services in southern Thailand. Qualcomm will donate telemedicine equipment for two public health stations on the two islands of Koh Panyee and Ban Pakkoh.
Desktop computers and wireless connectivity equipment also will be provided to the nearest main hospital in Phang Nga, connecting the public health stations with the hospital, enabling them to transmit data to the hospital and benefit from real-time access to doctors.
Hopefully the US chipmaker’s benevolent initiative in Thailand becomes self sustainable.…
Tags: Ban Pakkoh, Bangladesh, Grameen Telecom, Koh Panyee, Qualcomm, real-time access, rural medical and educational services, rural medical services, Senegal, telemedicine, telemedicine equipment, Thailand, United States, wireless connectivity, wireless connectivity equipment.
Dec 23, 2005, By: Robert Clark, Wireless Asia
http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=274336
The UN summit in Tunis last month did not turn out to be the showdown expected between the and the rest of the world.
That particular non-event, and the anti-social behavior of ’s police, took the headlines, such as they were. By the end, journalists were reduced to counting the number of delegates (19,400), sessions (316) and participating organizations (264).
It is worth recalling that one of the key missions of the grandly-named World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was to figure out ways of narrowing the digital divide.
And despite the grandstanding, WSIS did leave behind a few small straws of progress for the three billion citizens on planet earth who don’t have access to modern communications. I’m not…
Tags: David Keogh, Digital Solidarity Fund, Ericsson, Grameen Foundation, Grameen Telecom, Information Society, Johan Bergendahl, micro-finance concept, Muhammad Yunus, Robert Clark, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, technology supporter, Tunis, United Nations, United Nations Development Program, USD, Wireless Asia, Yoshio Utsumi.
Friday October 15 2004, 5.30pm, SLIDA premises, Colombo 7
1. WDR Expert Forum 2004
- September’s WDR Expert Forum at Mount Lavinia was a success
- Next expert forum in Sri Lanka: Sept. 30 , Oct 1 and 2 [half day], 2005
- Sector and Regulatory Performance Indicators: may be WDR theme for
2005/6; proposed workshop for this in early 2005 ? Pondicherry.
2. Funding
- We don’t have institutional funding, only project-based.
- This will be a challenge, but I’m (Rohan) confident we’ll pull it off. We spent under budget for the forum.
3. Projects
Tags: ADC, Asia, Ayesha Zainudeen, Bangladesh, Broadband, Colombo, Grameen Telecom, Harsha de Silva, India, Indonesia, Internet backbone, Malathy Knight-John, Mount Lavinia, Nepal, Pondicherry, Rohan Samarajiva, Sabina Fernando, Saeed Khan, Sri Lanka, virtual organization, web calendar.
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