View the full presentation here.

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Rohan made a presentation on South Asia’s  Budget Telecom Network Model, that has been adopted by many regional telcos in providing voice services to the bottom of the pyramid (BOP), and how the same can be applied to broadband services as well. The presentation drew on findings from LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP, telecom regulatory environment (TRE) and mobile benchmark studies. The full presentation can be downloaded here.

Other speakers at the event included Kristen Due Hauge from the GSMA,  M. Aslam Hayat from Grameenphone, and Tandi Wangchuk from Bhutan Telecom.

In his presentation, Dr Samarajiva described the new “Budget Telecom Network Model” developed in South Asia that is enabling mobile operators to serve low-income customers who yield very low ARPUs [Average Revenues per User] and discuss its extension to enable broadband use.  Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have offered the lowest total costs of mobile ownership since 2005-06 while still yielding adequate, though somewhat volatile, returns to ensure continued investment in network extension and new services.  LIRNEasia research shows that this has been made possible by business process innovations to reduce operating expenses, and the minimizing of transaction costs made possible by widespread prepaid use.  The analysis extensively draws from LIRNEasia’s six-country, 10,000 sample Teleuse @ BOP3 survey which shows how poor people are actually using information and communication technologies in emerging Asia.

The presentation slides can be downloaded here, and the full paper can be downloaded here.

The invitation signifies recognition of the high profile LIRNEasia has achieved as a thought leader on innovations in telecom policy and regulation that benefit those at the Bottom of the Pyramid in emerging Asian economies. Other speakers include Professor Richard Heeks of the University of Manchester and representatives of NokiaSiemens Networks and Vodafone.  The workshop is being held on 10-11 September 2009 at the Paris Headquarters of the OECD.

An interesting article in the Times of India, documents the varied use of missed calls among mobile phone users in India, based on LIRNEasia’s T@BOP3 findings for 2008.  Although the title of the article is slightly misleading (missed call use was, in fact, prevalent in all the countries studied;  see here for more information), it nevertheless brings home the point that missed calls are being regularly used to communicate messages of various kinds in different contexts.

The study of over 1,500 domestic and overseas migrant workers in six Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka) has yielded some interesting insights in Bangladesh, with important policy implications.

Demand for communication among Bangaldeshi migrants surveyed was particularly high compared to the other countries surveyed; a significant number of overseas migrants even used the Internet to call home. Bangladeshi migrants were sending home around half of their salaries on average, mostly through banks, and hand-carried in cash. Mobiles play a key role in coordinating remittances; a small number of overseas migrants were even sending money home through their mobiles.

These findings as well as the important policy implications (e.g. on IPLC policy, as well as mobile payments policy) were elaborated on by Dr. Rohan Samarajiva, LIRNEasia Chair and CEO at the event. The presentation sides can be downloaded here.

The migrant study is a part of a large multi-country survey of telecom use at the bottom of the pyramid, Teleuse@BOP3. Teleuse@BOP is conducted by LIRNEasia every two years. The study looks at how the lowest socioeconomic groups or the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) make use of telecom and other ICTs in their lives. Teleuse@BOP3, the third of these studies was conducted between October 2008 and March 2009 and included Bangladesh for the first time. Teleuse@BOP3 also included a survey of BOP overseas and domestic migrant workers from the same six countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka). Over 1,500 migrant workers were surveyed in late 2008. In Bangladesh, 180 recently returned overseas migrants and 170 domestic migrants were surveyed. In-depth qualitative research with similar migrant workers as well as their families was conducted in the six countries in early 2009.

The Bangladeshi findings from the main Teleuse@BOP3 study can be downloaded here: Teleuse@BOP3 Bangladesh findings 26Jun09

Just five years ago, the Indian telecom industry=barely included the poor. The country had a teledensity of 7/100 people, but in rural India 100 people were served by only 1.5 phones. Even in urban India, the poor were unconnected. Now, the picture is different. Even though the rural-urbandivide remains, with rural teledensity of 13% lagging far behind urban teledensity of 81%,massive progress has been achieved.

A 2008 study of teleuse among BOP households by LIRNEasia, yields some intriguing answers. Because the data comes directly from end-users, it captures aspects not picked up by the usual supply-side data. The study represents 429 million Indians belonging to socioeconomic classifications Dand E between ages 15 and 60. Among the BOP, 86% had made or received a call in the past three months.The access challenge has been more or less met.

The current issue of Nokia’s Expanding Horizons quarterly magazine highlights LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP3 study findings from India, illustrating this point.

Mobiles are now the most common form of communication, pushing public phones into second place… The rapid evolution of the mobile into a multi-purpose communications and knowledge tool combined with its fast adoption by the BOP, means they and the majority of people in the developing world are likely to have their first Internet experience via a mobile.

Although use of “Mobile 2.0” services such as payments and  e-government services is low, these are the ‘doors’ through which people are likely to enter these services. Governments and industry in South Asia need to understand potential barriers to usage and to identify what will motivate use of ‘non-voice’ applications among the BOP.

Key results can be previewed here. The full article can be viewed here.

Until recently, I believed, with Richard Heeks quoted below, that radio is found in more homes (at the BOP or all) than phones and TVs. Survey data from the BOP at three countries that account for the world’s greatest concentration of poor people (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) tell a story that contradicts the common wisdom. In India, 58% of BOP households have TVs, while only 32% have radios. And some kind of phone in the household? 45%!  In all six countries, TV is present in more BOP households than radios.  And radio is less a player in TOP households, who have probably relegated it to the car.

Finally, some have asked if the Internet should be the focus or if developers should look at where the poor have already “voted with their wallets” and see whether the simpler, cheaper technologies already in use can deliver sufficient ICT functionality to make a difference. Rather than wait for handset and bandwidth upgrades to allow mobile Internet access, we must determine what can be achieved for development through calls and SMS and, possibly, older technologies. Access figures are hard to come by, but we can estimate that something like 80 percent of the population in developing countries has access to a radio, 50 percent to a television.2,3 Early in ICT4D’s history, these statistics prompted the swift reinterpretation of ICT to incorporate radio and television, and foreshadowed the role convergence would play in ICT4D 2.0. Looking at the technologies that already penetrate—mobiles, radios, televisions—developers must now seek ways to add computing and Internet functionality.

But now, the picture is different.  Last October, Minister A. Raja stated that there were 11 access paths per 100 rural inhabitants, compared to 30 for urbanites.   Massive progress has been achieved, but is it making an impact at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)?

LIRNEasia’s Teleuse@BOP3 study has yielded some intriguing answers.

Forty five percent of Indian BOP teleuser households had a phone in late 2008.  Thirty seven percent had a mobile only; five percent had a fixed phone only; three percent had both.  This is massive progress from the 19 percent of BOP homes with a phone just two years ago.

In 2006, public phones of various kinds were the most frequently used; of the BOP teleusers, 71 percent relied on them.  By 2008, 36 percent said “my own mobile” was the most frequently used mode, over the 33 percent using public phones.

The most recent quantitative findings of the Teleuse@BOP3 study are now available. The findings were released at a presentation to the Cellular Operators Association of India in February 2009. The study looks at teleuse at the ‘bottom of the pyramid,’ or the lowest socio-economic classes across six Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The quantitative component involved a detailed face-to-face survey of 9,750 sample representative of the BOP in the six countries.

Though across all six countries it appears that the access challenge has been met, there is still huge potential for more‐than voice services. Awareness levels are still low and usage even lower. Download findings to see more.

India’s “mobile revolution” is still mainly seen in the cities, but the real prize for phone companies is the vast rural market, where nearly 70 percent of the 1.1-billion-strong population live, analysts say.

By the end of January, 34.5 percent of the population owned a telephone, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said.

But those figures distort the picture, with 66 percent of people in cities owning a phone compared to around nine percent in rural areas, says Frost & Sullivan.

“The next addition of subscribers will come from rural regions,” said consultant Trivedi. The government calls the rural market the “next accelerator” for mobile growth.

LIRNEasia’s findings from a recent 3,000 sample-strong demand side study of telecom show that in fact at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) between September 2007 and 2008, India’s rural BOP actually did add more connections than their urban counterparts, with 27% of rural BOP mobile owners (or 11% of all rural BOP teleusers) getting connected versus 19% of urban BOP mobile owners (8% of all urban BOP teleusers) over the period. Adding in fixed phones will increase the numbers marginally.

An important issue in how “urban” versus “rural” connections are counted has become a topic of interest recently. A separate article also published today, in The Hindu (Chennai online edition) highlights an important fact in counting urban and rural connections:  supply-side numbers count phones at the point where they are purchased, not where they are actually used. So a mobile (which is exactly that) purchased in the city may very well be actually used in the surrounding rural areas.

Hence, the statement in the AFP article, that “66 percent of people in cities owning a phone compared to around nine percent in rural areas,” quoting Frost & Sullivan may be reflective of the supply-side situation, not reality. According to LIRNEasia’s demand-side calculations at the BOP (note, not at the overall population level), urban BOP phone penetration (mobile + fixed) was seen to be 47% while rural BOP phone penetration was at 44%. If one was to look at the overall population numbers also from the demand side, the urban-rural gap may be wider than at the BOP-only level, however, it may not be as high as most supply-side numbers present it to be.

Teleuse@BOP, pioneered by LIRNEasia in 2005, is a unique series of cutting edge demand-side studies on ICT use among the BOP. The 2008 study was conducted across six countries, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and most recently, Bangladesh, among a sample of 9500+ BOP (SEC D and E) users. Aside from exploring traditional aspects of access and ownership at the BOP, this study focuses on if and how mobile phones are being used for non-voice, or ‘Mobile2.0’ applications.

COAI was constituted in 1995 as a non-profit, non-governmental society dedicated to the advancement of communication, particularly modern communication through cellular mobile telephony.

More information on the study can be found here.