A Sri Lanka newspaper article reporting on a talk I gave last week that was based on the Budget Telecom Network Model used the headline “Poor is the future.” Pity the newspaper did not pick up what I said about “more-than-voice” services offered by telcos making the poor less poor; not taking money from their pockets, but putting money in their pockets or at least allowing them to keep their money.
The poor is the market for the telecoms industry, a former regulator said.
Professor Rohan Samarajiva, former Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (T.R.C.) speaking at a seminar in Colombo on Tuesday said that a good example of this was Hutch, which targeted that market and achieved an E.B.I.T.D.A. of 52%, before the Government’s distorted tax policy on the telecoms industry ruined that ratio.
How be it the telecoms industry is still making good money, Samarajiva who is currently the Executive Director of LIRNEAsia, a think tank, which has a bent on using I.C.T. for the uplift of the poor said.
The talk was covered in the Daily Mirror.
1 Comment