NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Telecommunications and IT - Comments

Phone Banking

NK — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:55:39 -0500

With the estimation of 2.5 billion people in developing countries expected to be mobile phone customers in 5 years. This technology has tremendous potential to improve the business interactions in the developing world. Not only will it help the BoP, it will add numerous new customers to cell phone companies. If security can be enhanced, which I believe it will, billions of the BoP will have access to services that will help their struggle out of poverty. I am extremely excited to see when this project will actually be implemented and its results. Lets face it, the BoP cannot pull itself out of poverty only through micro-lending and these financial services are needed. They will allow faster transactions, the less need for money, and the ability for checking and savings accounts to be established.

microfinance

prashant — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:31:09 -0500

helping people like robin hood is wrong. governments tend to take from rich and have social programs to help poor, but in reality spend most of the funds in administration of such scheames. for social justice and upgradation of poor and needy, must be looked from their point of reference and what they really want and need. and how they can get those things in the future on their own. like environment problems today, most of the problems are created by us and those living simple lives are sufferers. we should reduce our consumptions of energy and resources and wastage thereof and let them find on their own their happiness and remove all restrictions that we may have imposed in our progress.

China & mobile social venture

Ludovic — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:25:23 -0500

Congrats to the NYT & NextBillion team / commnunity for all the good work done ! We animate here in China an ecosystem of Social Venture,via the Social Venture Forum (www.socialventureforum.com) - and last year organized a forum on "Harness the power of mobile toward Social Good" in China. For those interested to share, hereunder a link to the summary of the presentation: 2... Any idea, question, suggestion, am available at : Ludovic (at) kalibrio (dot) com

Phone Banking

TechMode — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:28:58 -0500

I find it surprising that Africa and the Phillipines have this type of access to phone banking. The bureaucratic nightmare of the west always hinders it to work in the best interests of society.

Information Request

Razz — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:41:40 -0500

Hi, I am in the process of doing a marketing research analysis of Nokia's global operations for my management schools project. Hence, Iam interested in recieving articles regarding Nokia's past and current strategies to penetrate the world market to become a global leader in the telecom industry. Iam looking forward to facts more than opinions in respect to the information if any. The opinions would have to be my own. If anyone has any complete information than please email me asap. Thank you.

hi

melinda — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:54:08 -0500

i have been loaded 30 pesos on my prepaid account,then 15 pesos was debited that day..because i have been created 15 text message only..so,why is this so happen often times?

More on Kiva/Microplace

Rob Katz — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:08:23 -0500

The Microfinance Gateway recently published an excellent piece comparing Kiva and Microplace. If you are interested in this space, and in these two players in particular, be sure to check it out.

Steve - fascinating

Rob Katz — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:57:36 -0500

Steve - your experience sounds fascinating. Please let us know when your writing on this experience is ready, I am very interested in see what your meta-level thoughts are. Thanks for commenting. Rob

Yes, I have lived without

Steve Cisler — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:57:59 -0500

Yes, I have lived without connectivity. In 2004 I went offline totally and began traveling around the U.S. talking to people not using the Internet. Seeing how they coped, what they might be missing. Then I went into Mexico and rode buses around the country, talking to people (the majority of course) not online. It was an eye-opening experience to see how many did not need or want access and had other ways of staying informed and connected. For myself who had been on the Net since the mid-80's it was very hard to stay off for 8 months. People thought I was dead. "You've committed virtual suicide said one." I am writing more exensively about this now.

Have you ever lived with no connectivity?

Al Hammond — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:24:20 -0500

I find all these comments fascinating. Personally, I think its no longer debatable that connectivity is a very powerful tool to empower people in ways that can help them climb out of poverty. Can you imagine what it would be like not to be able to make a phone call or send an email--instead, have to go physically to talk to everyone with whom you need to interact? That, unfortunately, is still the case for about half the world's people, either for reasons of access or cost. We are now piloting a model in rural Vietnam that could dramatically lower the costs of phone and internet service, both for users and for telecommunications. In fact, this model can make local calls entirely free for users, and lower capex by a factor of 5 and operational costs by half, compared to a typical mobile network. Because both customers and telcos win under this model, we think it has a chance of being adopted and used to build out in rural areas. And then the incredible entrepreneurial innovation that low-income phone users display in finding new ways to use this tool--as illustrated in the NYT article--can be unleashed.

Global Poverty and telecommunications

Paul Rigterink — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:10:55 -0500

I will give an example of how poor people will use telecommunications to increase their standard of living based on my understanding of poverty problems in a Central American country. A campesino in a rural area has been offered 1000 pesos for 10 bushels of corn by a middleman who declares his corn to be of "low quality". He calls his friend in the capital and learns chicken farmers in the area are paying 5000 pesos for 10 bushels of corn of "commercial quality". After calling his friend and the chicken farmer he decides to ship the corn to the capital and is able to sell it for 3500 pesos. He also talks with other friends and learns how to improve the quality of his corn, learns where to buy small grain storage systems so he can sell his corn when the price is higher, and learns that he can make even more money by raising chickens with his corn (1 lb of chicken takes 2 lbs of corn and sells for the price of 4 lbs of corn.) The use of telecommunications has helped the campesino increase his income by a factor of four.

Yes, they MAY

Beth Nderitu — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:31:27 -0500

I was born and raised in Kenya at a time when land-line phones were the preserve of the rich, corporations, and other institutions. Currently, almost all the families I know (here family means extended family) have at least one cellphone. So yes, poor people can afford cellphones. What is now needed are better ways to make them productive. Most of the people I know use them for social purposes, but some business people use them to order supplies, inquire about prices, and even get market prices sent to their phnes by text. This cuts down on time to travel to market and inquire price, and also give new leads on the best market to sell produce. New innovations are making them useful for other reasons as well. Case in point: M-Pesa, a money transfer service using cell phones. Of course cell phones can't end poverty by themselves. But they may be key.

No, the Cell phone can NOT Help End Global Poverty.

Henry Lahore — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:06:38 -0500

The poor cannot afford cell phone service. Even if new handsets were free most of the poor could not afford cell phone service. A major change is needed to drastically reduce the cost of wireless phone service. I have designed a ‘message phone’ system which needs 10,000 fewer phone towers to provide service to a region. Only three message phone towers would be needed to cover all of India. I designed a ‘message phone’ to provide service at less than a fraction of a cent per minute, and thus be affordable by 2 billion people. I have applied for a patent and wish to donate the design to a company which can use it to help end poverty by providing communications for less than 1 cent per minute. The message phone is also extremely rugged, will last for at least 10 years, can be used by people who are illiterate or blind or who speak any of thousands of languages, can be shared by many people, and will be able to download and play 100+ hours of podcasts from the internet. Henry Lahore

cost?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:38:42 -0500

The technology that InternetSpeech has created does sound like it would have potential for the poor. A couple of questions though: Firstly, the cost of the cheapest package seems to be $14 per month, plus $20 initiation fee. Will this cost go down in the future, because most of the world's poor wouldn't be able to afford this? Secondly, from what I have read, the technology that makes this possible has been patented. Does this mean that only InternetSpeech will ever be able to do this, and if so, will they ever target the poor (because they don't seem to currently). Which relates back to question one really, because if they have the exclusive rights to produce this, will the price go down enough? I guess my question really is, yes the technology seems to have potential, but does it have potential in terms of business and sustainability for the developing world's poor?

Great work

Johnboy — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:24:01 -0500

I love the concept, especially of the donkey relay points - really imaginative. I rejoice in the success of the work you're doing, I hope it continues. John.