In a paper prepared for a conference in Sri Lanka last week, Harsha de Silva and Ayesha Zainudeen report on an extensive survey they did of telecom users at the "bottom of the pyramid" (BOP) in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand. Most interesting (to me) was their conclusion:
This study finds that almost everyone at the bottom of the pyramid in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand have access to telecommunication services without having to spend any significant amount of time or money in getting to a telephone.
More specifically,
...of all those contacted (through the random selection process), more than 90 percent in all countries had used a phone at least once during the preceding three months...
Most of these people don't own their own phones, but they have access through friends, neighbors, family members or a public phone service. [The photo, courtesy of Kiwanja.net, shows a phone shop in Uganda.]
As recently as 2000 I was saying (with some justification) that more than half the people on earth had never made a phone call (at any time in their lives).
Having near universal coverage and 90% usage is remarkable, and very encouraging progress. Of course, it's due almost entirely to the spread of mobile phones, not the result of universal access programs.
Social benefits outweigh economic benefits
The second item that struck me was the summary of reasons why people wanted their own handsets.
I've written many times about the economic benefits of phone service but it turns out, when you survey actual users at the BOP, they perceive the benefits of phone ownership to be:
1. increased security (a phone is helpful in an emergency), and
2. better ability to maintain social relationships
As de Silva and Zainudeen put it, "users at the BOP do not seem to see how instant access to important information might be helpful in making decisions that could enhance one’s earning capacity or how gaining an hour (otherwise spent personally conveying a message by foot) could help reduce transactions costs."
As they go on to suggest, this is clearly an area where telecom operators could run marketing campaigns that would benefit all parties.
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