Rural India can immensely benefit from mobile boom

Deccan Herald  26th October 2009, Economy and Business Section

 

G Krishna Kumar

 

Rural India has played an important role in India’s overall economic growth. In fact, rural India accounts for 70 per cent of India’s population and 56 per cent of national income.

Mobile communication, by bridging the digital divide has revolutionised 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.

Land phone revolution
India, which did not participate in the global land phone revolution, has seen unprecedented growth in mobile subscriber base, with over 450 million subscribers (by the end of 2009), second only to china. India’s tele-density (number of phones per 100 people) has grown over three-folds in the last three years, from about 13 per cent in March 2006 to over 40 per cent now. Mobile usage, restricted to urban India a few years back, has started penetrating the rural hinterland of the country at a good pace. The rural tele-density has grown at an impressive rate from 1.9 per cent in 2005 to over 15 per cent now. A few studies provide show a positive co-relation between Tele-Density and GDP growth. However, India’s Human Development Index stands at an appalling 132nd rank out of the 179 countries. With over two-third of India’s population residing in the rural India, a genuine effort is required from private public partnerships to improve rural India’s standard of living. Indian rural population has challenges in terms of low literacy, poor health care, low per capita income, and other infrastructure problems that inhibit development.

Communication is still a challenge in many of the villages and remote places. While Tele-density is a reflection of Voice communication alone, the actual benefit of technology positively impacting rural economy will be seen when data communication is used effectively. Since the mobile phone and associated wireless technologies can be used to tackle one of the problems, namely, literacy, it would certainly have a cascading effect on the economic development.

While at present, the telecom service providers concentrate on subscriber acquisition in the rural market, primarily for voice services, which has become commoditised due to intense competition in the sector, it is not the end. The low and ever-dwindling ARPU (Average Revenue per User, currently at around Rs 200 a month) can be offset by using mobile services not just for communication, but to more basic aspects of life such as education and healthcare. In advanced countries like United Kingdom, although rural population is smaller compared with urban population, rural subscribers have over-taken their urban counterparts on many of the wireless and broadband parameters. In countries like the US and Australia, rural mobile health services have picked-up momentum.

Mobile-based systems
There are plenty of examples of mobile phone based services for rural environment. A simple Mobile based ordering system Collaboration@Rural project, enables small grocery shops in rural South Africa to sell the goods, their customers actually need –— through a mobile delivery system. Nano Ganesh, a trial project in Gujarat allows farmers to use their mobile phones to remotely control irrigation pump sets located in far-off locations.
An mHealth project in Africa provides mobile phone owners updates on diseases via SMS. Advance warning of an impending natural disaster through mobile phones alerts have been implemented in many countries. In South Africa, SIMpill is a sensor-equipped pill bottle with a SIM card that informs doctors whether patients are taking their tuberculosis medicine. Nokia Life Tools provide market and educational information through mobile phones. Such rural specific value-added service applications can be implemented across the rural topography with region specific adaptations.

However, it is important that the target audience is trained and is adept at using the mobile applications for successful adoption. Imparting m-awareness will enable the users to understand and appreciate the value of these technology services and help increase the adoption rate. The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) which has unused funds of over Rs 14,000 crores could be deployed for technology and infrastructure enhancement and maybe embark on a mission of increasing awareness of the mobile technology’s benefits among rural India with an active collaboration amongst various stakeholders such as telcos, learning content providers, universities and schools, and local administration.

The Telcos will have access to ‘m-aware’ rural population, which certainly would help in improving ARPU. TRAI has initiated actions in the right direction by creating an exhaustive connectivity-map covering over 6 lakh villages in India to estimate the available connectivity (coaxial cable, optical fiber connectivity, wire line and wireless) in Rural Areas. Satellite communication could be an alternate option for rough terrains that cannot be connected with wired or Mobile communication.

With 3G and broadband wireless access on the horizon, new opportunities abound to provide rich rural mobile applications. With the rapid fall in the cost of mobile hardware components, and the development of less expensive open source mobile software, the availability of economical feature-rich phones with high end graphic support would make easy adoption of mobile based rural applications. Solar powered mobile phones would be a boon for areas with non-existent/unreliable electricity.

With the next wave of exponential growth in wireless communication certainly coming from the rural segment, there is a huge opportunity to be tapped by the Telcos through innovative and ‘value-for-money’ solutions to address the needs of the rural population.
The writer is Director and Head of Engineering, Teleca Software solutions India.

The M in Learning

 

The Hindu Business Line , 5th October 2009, Monday, eWorld

 

The mobile phone can enable learning in a developing country such as India where its usage is growing by leaps and bounds..

 

M-learning supports learners in that access to learning content and instructors is not restricted by location.

G. Krishna Kumar
V. Sridhar

In today’s classrooms, mobile phones are seen as a nuisance, but they can be the key to a new, personal way of learning. Today’s learners – of all age groups – use their mobiles in nearly all their daily activities. Mobile media enable learners to access information and learning support whenever they need.

“The students of the future will demand learning support that is appropriate for their situation or context. Nothing more; nothing less. And they want it at the moment the need arises. Not sooner; not later. Mobiles will be a key technology to provide that learning support,” says Dr Marcus Specht, professor for Advanced Learning Technologies of the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies at the Open University, Netherlands. By enabling learning on the go, m-learning supports learners in that access to learning content and instructors is not restricted by location.

Nothing can be more apt for India which has witnessed colossal growth in mobile usage in the last five years. With close to 450 million mobile phones, India has the second largest mobile subscriber base in the world, next only to China. Mobile usage, restricted to urban India a few years ago, has started penetrating the rural hinterland at a good pace. The rural teledensity has grown from 1.9 per cent in 2005 to over 15 per cent now.

While the world recognises this phenomenal transformation in communication, India’s Human Development Index ranks an appalling 132 out of the 179 countries. With more than 40 per cent of our population being youth, literacy is of immense importance for a country that depends on this demographic dividend to spur growth and economic development. While Russia, China and Brazil have close to 100 per cent literacy, India, with about 80 per cent, needs to catch up.

Indian rural population has challenges in terms of low literacy, poor health care, low per capita income, and other infrastructure problems that inhibit development. If only the mobile phone and associated wireless technologies could be used to tackle one of the problems, namely, literacy, it might have a cascading effect on the economic development of the region.

Anytime, anywhere

While telecom service providers now concentrate on subscriber acquisition in the rural market, primarily for voice services, which has become commoditised due to intense competition, it is not the end. The dwindling average revenue per user (ARPU) can be offset by using mobile services not just for communication but for more basic aspects of life such as education and healthcare. In advanced countries such as the UK, although the rural population is smaller vis-À-vis the urban, rural subscribers have overtaken their urban counterparts on many of the wireless and broadband parameters. In countries such as the US and Australia, rural mobile health services have picked up momentum.

Examples abound on the use of mobile phones for learning. Mobile devices, which are truly personal, provide an opportunity to learn anytime, anywhere. Through an innovative university-businesses collaborative model, Stanford University’s International Outreach Program launched the Dunia Moja Project in Swahili in Africa to teach university courses to students using mobile phones. The Teachermates projects at Stanford University attempts to make education fun by using innovative mobile games.

A pan-European research and development programme on m-learning is aimed at improving literacy and numerical skills in the age group of 16-24, who were not doing well in the normal education system. Recently the European Community project called BLOOM (Bite-sized Learning Opportunities on Mobile Devices) carried out ‘M-learning in Taxi’, an interesting experiment whereby taxi drivers would utilise waiting time effectively by learning about subjects of interest and improving their knowledge about the city using smartphones. M-learning has certainly picked up momentum across the world and most of the projects are universal in nature and with regional adaptations that can be tailored to each country.

Active m-literacy programme

For m-learning to reach the masses, an active m-literacy programme is a must. Though children and youth have the innate ability to use gadgets with ease, as was demonstrated by the Hole-in-the-Wall project pioneered by NIIT, use of mobile devices for activities such as learning needs training. Many services, especially those that are targeted at the rural masses, such as Nokia Life Tools, provide market and educational information through mobile phones. Hence, it is important that the target audience is trained and adept at using these for successful adoption.

Imparting m-literacy will enable the users to understand and appreciate the value of these technology services and help increase the adoption rate. With 3G and broadband wireless access on the horizon, new opportunities abound to provide a rich m-learning experience. With the rapid fall in the cost of mobile hardware components, and the development of less expensive open source mobile software, the availability of economical feature-rich phones with high-end graphic support that makes m-learning conducive, the days of innovative m-learning solutions are not far off.

There certainly is a huge opportunity that can be tapped by addressing the learning needs of youth in urban and rural India using mobile services. Breaking into the Indian rural market requires a lot more creativity. One way is to embark on a mission of m-literacy and m-learning with an active collaboration amongst various stakeholders such as telecom companies, learning content providers, universities and schools, and local administration. What better way to make the life of our future hopefuls better than educating them through the ubiquitous mobile technologies?

Mr Krishna Kumar is Director and Head of Engineering, Teleca Software Solutions India, and Dr Sridhar is former professor of Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. The views expressed are personal.