Will Rural India benefit from the Mobile Boom

My article on Mobile Applications for rural India appeared under Economy and Business, Deccan Herald : 26th Oct 2009

Rural India has played an important role in India’s overall economic growth. In fact, rural India accounts for 70% of India’s population, 56% of income, 64% of expenditure and 33% of savings, as per ICRIER (Indian Council of Research on International Economic Relations) Jan 2009 report. Mobile communication, by bridging the digital divide has revolutionized the social and economic life across the rural and semi-urban areas and Mobile phones represent the world's largest distribution platform. “The mobile phone market is especially important for developing countries, where it is growing most rapidly and where it is seen as a "leapfrogging" tool” states a 2009 World Bank report on Information and communication......


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Per-second billing

Who would have imagined that Per Second billing (PSB) introduced by DoCoMo ( with all the catchy advertisments!)would be a trigger for the Telecom Stocks to tumble!

TRAI which initially said that the PSB is mandatory , now has done a u-turn confirming that it is just an option!

For all the Post paid subscribers ( which should be about 10% of the overall MObile Market. Yes! India has around 90% Pre-paid connections!!!), per-second billing may not make too much of a difference

TRAI will come-up with a consultation paper over the next 45 days and needs to be seen what exactly does the TRAI reccommend

Should there be changes to Landline billing as well?

The M in Learning

The mobile phone can enable learning in a developing country such as India where its usage is growing by leaps and bounds.. This is article that I co-authored with Dr Sridhar. This article appeared in the Hindu Business Line (5th October 2009).

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