Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid 3 (Teleuse@BOP3)

Terms like the ‘next billion’ and the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ have now become commonplace in the telecom industry. Emerging markets have accounted for 85 percent of new connections today, according to the GSM Association; China, India, as well as Russia and Brazil together have contributed  30 percent of the third billion subscribers alone. Mobile communication is spreading in emerging markets so rapidly that industry experts are predicting that many in the developing world will experience the Internet for the first time on a mobile rather than a PC. Mobiles are now (and will increasingly become) payment devices that can also send/process/receive voice, text, images; in the next few years they will also be capable of information-retrieval and publishing functions normally associated with the Internet.

LIRNEasia conducted two consecutive demand-side surveys on telecom use at the BOP in 2005 and 2006. Teleuse@BOP1 serving essentially as a pilot, surveyed 3,200 respondents among teleusers at the BOP in 7 districts in India and 4 in Sri Lanka. Teleuse@BOP2 was based on a 6,269 representative-sample survey, representative of teleusers at the BOP in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Thailand. The key findings uncovered a phone-owning potential for 115 million current non-owner users at the BOP between mid-2006 and mid-2008 in the five countries studied alone.

Teleuse@BOP3, similar to previous studies, aims to explore issues on the rise, and provide insight into these areas of interest to better equip policy-makers to develop appropriate policies, for industry to craft appropriate products and services and for more people at the BOP to join the information society. One particular issue that will be explored is the rise of ‘more-than-voice’ or “Mobile2.0” applications at the BOP, the underlying theme of LIRNEasia’s 2008-2010 research program. The study will explore the use of these applications, most specifically relating to mobile payments, especially remittances by expatriate workers. The study will also capture the teleuse experience of migrant workers in the countries where the study is conducted.

Project updates:
12 May 2008: LIRNEasia called for expressions of interest (EOI) by interested research agencies to conduct Teleuse@BOP3 on 21 May 2008. EOIs have been received, and short-listed candidates will be notified soon; full-length proposals will be requested from short-listed candidates thereafter.

Kategorie: General, Aktualisiert am 5/12/2008 von Nirmali Sivapragasam | Log in