Tahani Iqbal, LIRNEasia Research Fellow, has been invited to make a presentation on the “Wants and needs of women in developing markets” at a mWomen Working Group Meeting organized by the GSM Association on 9 – 11 November 2010 in Chennai, India. She is the only non-industry speaker at the event, and will present findings from LIRNEasia‘s studies on telecom use at the bottom of the pyramid. Click here to view presentation slides.
Mobile banking services are on average 19% cheaper than services from traditional banks, according to a new research conducted by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). It has found that the lower the transaction value, the cheaper mobile banking is in comparison with formal banks. At a transactional value of $23, branchless banking is on average 38% cheaper than commercial banks, the report found. Mobile banking is also 54% cheaper than informal options for money transfer, said the report. Many challenges face financial institutions looking to develop mobile money management capabilities.
LIRNEasia, in coordination with the Thai Media Policy Center, Chulalongkorn University and Siam Intelligence Unit, Thailand, hosted a seminar to disseminate findings from its 2008 Asian study on the telecom regulatory environment (TRE), on the 19th of October, in Bangkok, Thailand. The event drew an audience of close to 40, which included senior representatives from the telecom industry, government, academia and the media. Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia) presented overall regional findings from the study, followed by Deunden Nikomborirak (Thailand Development Research Institute) and Payal Malik (University of Delhi), presenting findings from the Thailand and India study, respectively. This was followed by a panel discussion on spectrum allocation in Thailand, chaired by Pirongrong Ramasoota of Chulalongkorn University. Distinguished panelists included Supot Tiarawut (TRIDI, National Telecommunication Commission), Kittipong Tameyapradit (TOT Plc Ltd), Kristin Due Hauge (GSMA) and Somkiat Tangkitvanich (TDRI).
Rohan Samarajiva, LIRNEasia’s CEO, delivered a keynote address at the recently concluded South Asia Mobile Summit, held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21 – 22 October 2009. The two-day event was organized by the South Asia Mobile Forum, a consortium of telecom industry players in the SAARC region, with the aim of creating a platform for market, institutional and technological issues to be discussed and progress made. 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.
Inside the LIRNE.NET community, we have for some time been discussing a program of research centered on what we all mobile multiple play, a convergence of services around the transactional capabilities of the mobile phone and its unparallelled connectivity. Our friend and colleague Abu Saeed Khan is reporting on a major development on these lines from the GSM Congress in Barcelona: :: bdnews24.com :: Spearheaded by a special group of 19 mobile operators with networks in over 100 countries and representing over 600 million customers, GSMA believes the programme could double the number of recipients of international remittances to more than 1.5 billion, while helping to quadruple the size of the international remittances market to more than one trillion dollars by 2012.