As part of our “Mobile Research at Your Desk” series, this week we present a white paper written by Hernán Galperin in collaboration with the Diálogo Regional sobre la Sociedad de la Información (DIRSI) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC). He attempts to shed some light on the affordability of mobile phones between Latin American and Caribbean countries and compare tariffs with the rest of the world.
Recognizing that developing a single standardized metric for mobile affordability is a challenge, the author used a well-established OECD method - a basket of services - to estimate the cost of a set of mobile services specified for low-volume users.
The data exposes the reality of mobile affordability for the bottom of the pyramid.
Hernán Galperin offers a quantitative analysis using a sound approach to predict affordability of mobile tariffs. In the report, it is acknowledged that price of handsets or connection charges are not accounted for, and it is clarified that per-minute calculation can result in an over-estimation of cost.
In another report, Galperin and colleague Judith Mariscal share mobile opportunities informed by survey results of 7,000 individuals in low income households. Discussed there are perceptions of mobile service costs, and patterns of mobile usage, and both reasons for and barriers to mobile adoption. With colleague Roxana Barrantes, Galperin demonstrates the relationship between costs of mobile services and mobile penetration and discusses the savings incurred by low income users with micro-prepayment and per-second billing schemes.
All three papers can be accessed in our mDirectory for your reading.
MobileActive.org's content license is here. Please note that some materials in this slidecast may be separately copyrighted by the respective authors of the papers we presented. Images and materials are used here with the author's permission.
Can the Poor Afford Mobile Telephony? Evidence from Latin America data sheet 1955 Views
Author:
Roxanna Barrantes and Hernán Galperin
Publication Date:
Jan 2008
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
This study analyses the cost of a low-volume basket of mobile services across a sample of Latin American countries, and contrasts these results with standard income and poverty indicators. The main goal is to establish how affordable mobile services are for the poor.
Three general findings emerge. First, the poor generally pay a cost premium for using prepaid subscriptions that allow better expenditure control, though in many cases this premium is much lower than expected.
Second, affordability is an important predictor of mobile penetration. Overall, while affordable handsets and the callingparty-pays system allow a significant number of low-income Latin Americans to become mobile subscribers, the results reveal that the current tariff structure has an inhibiting effect on service consumption by the poor.
Third, since affordability is the most significant barrier to extending the reach of mobile services, as well as the range of services used by the poor, priority should be placed on policies aimed at reducing tariffs and stimulating the introduction of commercial innovations for low-income groups.
At MobileActive, we’ve held a bi-weekly Research Ignite series to keep up with the latest in research related to mobiles for development. For the past few weeks, our team has been learning and discussing new research and reports. We invite you to put on your learning caps and plug into our screencasts, where we will feature some exciting developments in the world of m4d.
For this Ignite, we’re featuring three studies that were presented at the 28th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The research covers mobile games in rural India and China that address literacy, and a study on mobile Internet use in South Africa.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of California, Carnegie Mellon University and Nokia Research Palo Alto developed two mobile games, Multimedia Word and Drumming Stroke, which aim to help young children in rural China recognize Chinese characters and practice strokes. It is the first known m-game that leverages a mobile learning tool for the Chinese language.
A Mobile Marakothi, a Traditional Children’s Game in India, that Teaches English
In rural India, empirical studies show that children often miss school largely due to family labor, assisting in domestic work at home or in the farm without wages or as hired labor. The authors believe that “Mobile learning can empower poor children to balance their educational and income earning goals,” and so, pursued the development of a mobile game to teach English vocabulary. Mobile phones with the m-game were deployed to children living in rural Uttar Pradesh, India for 26 weeks. The pilot identified opportunities for out-of-school learning, revealed gender influences on m-game usage and surprisingly, showed that m-games traversed caste and village boundaries and facilitated social interaction.
Presentation starts at 4:03 min.
Challenging Assumptions of Mobile Internet Access: The Experience of Women in A Township in South Africa
More and more mobile users are surfing the internet on their phones. For most people in developing countries, there is no plan B – in other words, no PC-based internet access. This study reports the experience of a group of women in Khayelitsha, in Cape Town, South Africa who connected to a mobile-based internet for the first time. In this article, six challenges facing mobile-only internet users in developing countries are identified. The authors propose how to the mobile industry can move forward by keeping the end-users in mind and introduce the concept of “digital divide” that is secondary to mobile access – it’s “after-access”.
Presentation starts at 9:59 min.
Thank you to the authors for providing permission to use images, screenshots and data as well as helpful feedback for the screencast. For more research, reports, and white papers about mobile technology for social change visit our mdirectory.
Tariffs and the affordability gap in mobile telephone services in Latin America and the Caribbean data sheet 1506 Views
Author:
Hernán Galperin
Publication Date:
Mar 2010
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
This study focuses on the affordability of the OECD’s low-usage basket of mobile telephony services, which includes 360 calls and 396 text messages (SMS) a year, segmented by duration, time of day and destination. In other words, the study compares the monthly cost of prepaid service for a user who makes approximately one call and sends one text message per day. Because our main interest lies in estimating the affordability of this basket of services for users at the bottom of the income pyramid, two indicators are used: (1) The proportion of income that the cost of this basket represents for users in the third income decile, which acts as a proxy for income at the bottom of the pyramid; (2) The affordability gap, which corresponds to the difference between the cost of the basket and 5 percent of the income of the potential users in each income decile.
The main findings are summarized. (1) There is significant dispersion of mobile telephony tariffs in the region, with costs of the low-usage basket ranging from US$45 in Brazil to US$2.20 in Jamaica (in current dollars). The average for the region is US$15. (2) For users who consume a minimum basket of mobile services, prepaid service is less expensive than post-paid service in 13 of the 20 markets in the sample. (3) Overall, mobile telephony tariffs in Latin America are significantly higher than those of OECD countries (2 times more) and other emerging markets (3 times more). (4) The only country in the region in which mobile telephone services can be considered affordable for low-income users is Costa Rica. (5) Despite advances in the adoption of the service, the results of this report highlight a significant affordability gap that limits consumption of mobile telephony services for most people in the region, and point to a need for continued efforts and initiatives to reinforce competition in the market and review the heavy tax burden that affects mobile telephony service in the region.
Wanted: New Business Models for Profitable Rural Expansion data sheet 1779 Views
Author:
Accenture, Ranjan, K., Falk, S., Narsalay, R., O'Brien, D., and Sennik, R.
Publication Date:
Jan 2009
Publication Type:
Report/White paper
Abstract:
In 2009, Accenture conducted a research study into the future of mobile industry expansion in rural India. We explored the views of rural consumers—both current customers and non-users—and also interviewed senior-level executives from companies that occupy strategic positions across the mobile telephony ecosystem. The key objective of this research was to understand the value proposition of mobile services to rural customers, and also to see how the potential to serve rural markets is making mobile network operators re-think key elements of their existing business models.
This first phase of this research consisted of 15 in-depth, hour-long telephone or in-person interviews completed in June and July 2009 with executives in India representing mobile operators, handset manufacturers, passive and active telecom infrastructure providers, technology enablers/application providers, and content developers and aggregators. Additionally, in association with an independent research company, Accenture conducted an exploratory qualitative study using a focus group discussion methodology. The focus group invitees included primary wage earners, homemakers and students from rural areas.
For the second phase of the Accenture research, more than 2,400 rural citizens in India were surveyed—802 current mobile customers and 1,634 non-users— to gain a broader understanding of what customers value most in mobile devices and services. The insights drawn from this research can help mobile network operators evolve their business models, and can support more effective design of profitable packages for rural consumers
After Access - Challenges Facing Mobile-only Internet Users in the Developing World data sheet 2417 Views
Author:
Gitau, Shikoh, Marsden, Gary, & Donner, Jonathan
Publication Date:
Apr 2010
Publication Type:
Journal article
Abstract:
This study reports results of an ethnographic action research study, exploring mobile-centric internet use. Over the course of 13 weeks, eight women, each a member of a livelihoods collective in urban Cape Town, South Africa, received training to make use of the data (internet) features on the phones they already owned. None of the women had previous exposure to PCs or the internet. Activities focused on social networking, entertainment, information search, and, in particular, job searches. Results of the exercise reveal both the promise of, and barriers to, mobile internet use by a potentially large community of first-time, mobilecentric users. Discussion focuses on the importance of selfexpression and identity management in the refinement of online and offline presences, and considers these forces relative to issues of gender and socioeconomic status.
