In more and more low income contries farmers have used mobile phones to improve livelihood. Over past few years penetration of mobile phones has surged from 2 to 25 per 100 inhabitants. Mobile is simple and affortable to be used by poor.
How Mobile can change life of poor farmers
1. Overcoming lack of information : Poor people often lack information that is vital for their work. This include current market price, weather conditions, advisory tips.
- Fishermen may have time to visit only one port while their catch is fresh. If buyer at the port are paying less money they must sell their. Mobile phones can provide information to select best option while still at sea. In southern India this has increased 10 % fishermen profit.
- Researchers in Phillipines use mobile to provide farmers with right information related to right amount of fertilizers resulting in maximising yield saving money and environment. Fertilizer represent 20 % of total cost. Too little use of fertilizer results in low yield and too high leads to wastage. Farmer can DIAL M and provide details of field size to get corrent usage of fertilizers.
2. Insurance and Payment through phones
- Imagine u own a small farm kenya and invested most of money in fertilizers and seeds. Draught sweeps and and you loose whole crop. Large farm has insurance but its expensive and requires assessment and inspection. Small farmer can nor efford this. To address to them following system was implemented : When u buy seeds, fertilizers use mobile to capture picture of barcode. Send this as MMS it registers seeds etc purchased against farmer mobile numebr.Solar power weather stations monitor condition. This determines if weather is severe to impact crops. If crop fails because of draught and u have registered fertilizer etc then insrance is paid bypassing costly inspection and assessment process.
Government Role
Government of India has to take full advantage of mobile technology and bring innovative usage of mobile in rural India. This includes correct- timely information, Insurance , Direct seeling to markey , mobile phone as bank/payment system.
Its an opportunity to lift poverty and livelihood of people but it requires innovation , proper policies and strategy . Government has to act as enabler.
There would be no harm in having separate commitee like UID team whose focus is to enable mobile adoptation and applications for rural population.
About Me
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
My Blog : Whats Mobile Number Portability !!! With MNP in India on cards Customer and Operators perspective !!!!
Mobile Number Portability also known as MNP allows mobile subscribers to retain mobile number and change operator.
Government has been proposing to launch MNP for quiet long and finally looks like protoype will be launched in Haryana in Nov 2010 and pan India launch by Dec 2010.
Customer Perspective
Customer has the advantage of choosing operator based on service experience , service features and service tariffs to suite his requiremnets.
There will be cost of shifting from one operators to other , currently assumed to be Rs 19, and also there will be minimum time one has to be with operator before one can shift.
Customer has to be very clear about what he wants from service provider , before deciding to shift. There are key considerations for customer based on which he decides to shift:
Government has been proposing to launch MNP for quiet long and finally looks like protoype will be launched in Haryana in Nov 2010 and pan India launch by Dec 2010.
Customer Perspective
Customer has the advantage of choosing operator based on service experience , service features and service tariffs to suite his requiremnets.
There will be cost of shifting from one operators to other , currently assumed to be Rs 19, and also there will be minimum time one has to be with operator before one can shift.
Customer has to be very clear about what he wants from service provider , before deciding to shift. There are key considerations for customer based on which he decides to shift:
- Price of all services : Voice local , Voice STD, Voice ISD, Internet access, Blackberry, Hello tunes , SMS , Voice Mail , Roaming . Subscriber has to be clear about his usage pattern to evaluate.
- Service quality : This includes quality in terms of network coverage , service availability , service speed ex download , picture quality , customer care experience and accurate/easy to understand billing.
Most of subscribers are not aware of their service usage and tend to change subscriber for short term goals. This is true for low ARPU (Average Revenue per subscribers) who keeps on changing operators.
In service quality - network quality coverage is key issue and subscriber has to be very clear as new operators will have coverage as major concern. If u travel pan india , better watch.
Operator Perspective
Its opportunity for both old operators and new operators.
New operators will come with innovative schemes and will definitely drive more price war. Old operators need to retain existing customer particularly high ARPU .
MNP has been implemented in countries where markets are saturated with no scope of subscriber addition. Market segmentation and customer analytics beocomes key. Operators need to start focussing on differentiated services based on segmentation.
Telecom Market Perspective
- Customer retention and services will be key focus , particularly for high usage customers.
- Segmented offering will be on cards
- New entrants may spoil market with price war , here government has to regulate as unviable plans could lead to unviable business for new entratnts and spoiling market as whole.
- Undertstanding customer needs away from price , coverage will lead to innovative products in market.
Friday, November 19, 2010
MY Blog: 2G Spectrum Scam : Government projecting to be focussed on development has led India Down !!! Its collective responsibility
Spectrum is allocated by government to operators to carry voice and data traffic from mobile handset to operator network.
Spectrum allocation and utilization are prime important concern for any government worldwide as this is always limited .
In Indian context this is more important we have more population to cover and spectrum needs to be treated as national resource and requires long term proper policy in place.
It has been seen that where ever mobile penetration has increased economic development has increased ten time.
What has happened in last 2-3 years is :
1. Spectrum allocation policy is not clear in a country where maximum subscribers are added. TRAI and government has only one role that is regulate interest of citizens and nation by drafting policies which has long term perspective and regulate same. Is government still puppet of few business houses?
2. There is no tag on operators per circle , you need more operator to make pricing competitive. In India prices offered is lowest in the world. Was there any need to have more than 4 operators per circle?
This has created ambiguity in shining telecom industry which was offering best prices with 4 operators per circle .
When spectrum was allocated:
1. Top circles were already having high penetration
2. Rural and low end was focussed by existing operators
By allocating spectrum to new operators, government has :
1. Allowed entry of operators with no business viability
2. Most of them are doing bear min roll out and are looking for offloading equity at premium price.
3. Scarcity of spectrum created valuation of license and spectrum
End result of above decision have been:
1 Existing operators are hanging on to market . Drop in share prices of these operators are reflection of impact of policies of government.
2. 3G prices have been so high as existing operators required spectrum . By not allocating spectrum and licenses to new operators . existing operators would have paid for it and this could have been win win for both operator and government.
3. With 3 prices so high, government objective of cost effective wireless broadband and expansion into rural areas will have big jolt.
4. No single operator could take PAN India 3 G license and BWA was taken by one operator .
Impact on Nation
1. Mobile broadband penetration will have biggest impact .
2. Telecom business may bleed for some time and have indirect imapct on associated manpower
Who is responsibe
1. Its collective responsibilty of government as Telecom is backbone of country economi growth
2. By making single person resign , shows lack of accountability and reviews
The same have been issue with Common Wealth , its time for PMO to sit and examine how such big tickets deals are done with PMO sleeping.
Spectrum allocation and utilization are prime important concern for any government worldwide as this is always limited .
In Indian context this is more important we have more population to cover and spectrum needs to be treated as national resource and requires long term proper policy in place.
It has been seen that where ever mobile penetration has increased economic development has increased ten time.
What has happened in last 2-3 years is :
1. Spectrum allocation policy is not clear in a country where maximum subscribers are added. TRAI and government has only one role that is regulate interest of citizens and nation by drafting policies which has long term perspective and regulate same. Is government still puppet of few business houses?
2. There is no tag on operators per circle , you need more operator to make pricing competitive. In India prices offered is lowest in the world. Was there any need to have more than 4 operators per circle?
This has created ambiguity in shining telecom industry which was offering best prices with 4 operators per circle .
When spectrum was allocated:
1. Top circles were already having high penetration
2. Rural and low end was focussed by existing operators
By allocating spectrum to new operators, government has :
1. Allowed entry of operators with no business viability
2. Most of them are doing bear min roll out and are looking for offloading equity at premium price.
3. Scarcity of spectrum created valuation of license and spectrum
End result of above decision have been:
1 Existing operators are hanging on to market . Drop in share prices of these operators are reflection of impact of policies of government.
2. 3G prices have been so high as existing operators required spectrum . By not allocating spectrum and licenses to new operators . existing operators would have paid for it and this could have been win win for both operator and government.
3. With 3 prices so high, government objective of cost effective wireless broadband and expansion into rural areas will have big jolt.
4. No single operator could take PAN India 3 G license and BWA was taken by one operator .
Impact on Nation
1. Mobile broadband penetration will have biggest impact .
2. Telecom business may bleed for some time and have indirect imapct on associated manpower
Who is responsibe
1. Its collective responsibilty of government as Telecom is backbone of country economi growth
2. By making single person resign , shows lack of accountability and reviews
The same have been issue with Common Wealth , its time for PMO to sit and examine how such big tickets deals are done with PMO sleeping.
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