Bottom of the Pyramid Expenditure Patterns on Mobile Phone Services in Selected Emerging Asian Countries

The digital divide in rural South Asia: Survey evidence from Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka

“…This reflects the presence of Internet kiosks in the sampled locations, and therefore these proportions are not reflective of the overall availability or usage proportions of IT in the three countries. 6 The sample in each country has fairly high ownership of televisions and telephones, especially in Nepal and Sri Lanka, but the proportions are not out of line with national averages (e.g., Ag€ uero and de Silva, 2008;Sivapragasam, 2008). Individuals in the sample also rely to a considerable extent on newspapers for information, though the proportion is lowest for the highest income country in the sample, Sri Lanka.…”

Progress Towards Resolving the Measurement Link Between ICT and Poverty Reduction

“…In one study of individuals in Africa, those individuals at the bottom 75 % had a share of 10.9 % of their monthly mobile expenditure in relation to income and those at the top 25 % were spending 4.8 % of their mobile expenditure (Gillwald and Stork 2008). In a later study in selected Asian countries, household data was compared and found that the poorest quintile exceeded 24 % of their proportion spent towards mobile services over total monthly expenditures (Agüero et al 2011) (see Table 2). As we look further down the quintiles, we also see that the spending proportion reduces; we see the richest quintile (top 20 %) spend far less than 10 % on mobile services over total monthly expenditures.…”

“…Further costs such as taxes on mobiles which increase mobile service expenditures may truly burden the most poor (Agüero et al 2011). Even the most basic or everyday needs like food are in some cases being held back in order to afford the costs of mobile phone expenses (Diga 2007;Duncan 2013;infodev 2012a).…”

GSM whitespaces: An opportunity for rural cellular service

“…Moreover, both of these networks were built and are operated without any involvement or coordination with existing operators. 2 Compared to traditional cellular networks, the core advantage of CCNs is that they enable local independent entrepreneurs to solve their own communication problems. There's no reason existing telcos cannot take advantage of low-cost equipment targeted towards CCNs to build out rural infrastructure, but access to low-cost equipment isn't enough to ensure sustainable operation in rural areas.…”

“…These networks have positive economic impacts ( [30], [17]), and spending on telecommunication matches that of a necessity among the poor [2]. As such, providing universal access to cellular service is an important policy objective, with universal service obligations (USO) and subsidies being the primary policy mechanisms for accomplishing this.…”