Mobile Phones Widen Market, Raise Incomes for Rural Poor

Most participants also were very hopeful that wireless Broadband would be a popular and relevant medium in the rural areas with UT Starcom Managing Director, Mr Vijay Yadav suggesting involvement of local people in the network job in addition to USO funding. The UT Starcom chief executive wanted the industry to realize the potential of the customer also becoming the producer, the Prosumer business model, as he termed it. "The Prosumer will play a key role with villagers delivering services to urban areas over the broadband network and the urban areas doing the same to global customers" Mr Yadav underlined the evolution of the service in the coming years. He felt that mobility was more relevant to rural areas as people had to contact markets and vendors located at distances. In the choice of technology for rural reach with broadband he suggested a combination of both wireless and wireline technologies for a richer user experience. "The network that delivers both video and voice is the answer" he added.

A strong plea to reduce the share of the revenue that operators paid to the Government and also reduction in the cash rich USO fund came from Association of United Service Providers of India Secretary- General Mr S. C. Khanna. But the first requirement was the resolution of the spectrum allocation policy, according to him.

Presenting three rural scenarios where people at the bottom of the pyramid were benefiting from use of the mobile phone, Bharti Airtel's Vice-president Technology, Mr T. V. Sriram picked up the Kerala fishermen using the mobile, water melon sellers and the itinerant balloon seller as case studies. The use of the mobile enabled them to widen their market, locate their customers and raise their revenue that more than paid for the cost of using the service, he explained.

Director - Telecom, Sun Microsystems Mr Ramesh C Mamgain and UTStarcom sales Director K. K. Peringhat along with Sriram explored the rural market's relevance suggesting many innovative services over the mobile like payment facilities, e-seva, e-learning and e-medicine. "If the villagers could use the mobile phone camera to convey to the veterinary doctor sited far away the specific problem of their cattle and get advise of treatment, it could make a remarkable difference to them. These and similar services should make rural mobile phone very relevant to the rural mass", they pointed out.

Shri N K Goyal, Chairman Emeritus, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA) presented gave the vote of thanks.

Posted to the site on 24th September 2007