CIAO DATE: 10/2008
September 2008
In the field of communications, it is widely appreciated that the spread of mobile phones in India is one of the world’s great developments. While mostly in the urban areas, the nearly 300 million mobiles will increase to a half billion by 2010, and penetrate more widely to the rural areas as well. Spurred by cheap handsets, prepaid cards, low-cost service options, a policy of Calling Party Pays, and innovative customer services, India is adding over eight million subscribers a month. One operator alone has sold one million mobiles a month since offering a handset for as low as 777 Indian rupees or US$20.
The transformational nature of this phenomenon is the subject of this report of the Third Annual Joint Roundtable on Communications Policy convened jointly by Aspen Institute India and the Communications and Society Program of the Aspen Institute (U.S.) in February, 2008. The roundtable of 28 Indian and American leaders and experts from government, communications industries and academia focused on how to propel India forward via the mobile revolution by a more inclusive expansion strategy.
Nripendra Misra, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), keynoted the conference by outlining the state of the mobile industry in India, a cellular market with an annual compounded growth rate of 42 percent since 2002, and an expectation to reach 500 million subscribers by 2010. Chairman Misra stressed the need to expand the rural coverage in India to reach its goals. “India is still, unfortunately, on the wrong side of the digital divide, which prevents a significant portion of our population from attaining their full potential,” he stated.
Although there is a low Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in India, Chairman Misra expects that to increase from a convergence of services, improved quality of content and the inclusion of more value added services, e.g., SMS text messages, ringtones, Bollywood and cricket related content. Chairman Misra also touched on how nascent mobile commerce would quickly overtake e-commerce in India. The TRAI Chairman’s complete remarks are included in the Appendix.
The report details some successful and low cost mobile projects in rural India which have positively impacted their communities in both social and economic ways. One such innovative solution described is the Candlebox—a low cost, low power “webtop” device that usesmobile technology to provide wireless Internet access for various services including email, social networking, e-commerce and distance learning. This device is being developed by one of the sponsors, Qualcomm, in conjunction with NIIT, the largest private educator in India, as a result of a discussion at the 2007 Aspen Joint Conference regarding access for learning technologies in India’s rural areas.
Aspen roundtable participants discussed developments, context, and policy over the two day meeting in Kovalam, Kerala, India. The group then presented its recommendations to senior government officials in New Delhi: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission; MM Nambiar, Special Secretary, and senior staff members, Department of Information Technology; and Nikhil Kumar, Chairman, and ten members of the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology.
Resource link: m-Powering India: Mobile Communications for Inclusive Growth [PDF] - 728K