Rural telephony penetration gets a dope from GSM association development fund
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Business Line: GSM Association Development Fund is in discussion with Indian cellular operators to increase rural telephony penetration. The project involves setting up GSM-based mobile PCOs and Internet kiosks in rural areas that can be shared by the village community similar to the Government-sponsored village public telephony and Internet dhaba schemes on fixed line telephones.
Around 533,000 villages have been connected to VPTs as of September 2005.rural areas now have more than 20 lakh PCOs in all, more than 13.9 mn phones.Currentrly private operators have 0.01% share GSMA fund is using Motorola’s emerging markets handset that costs about $20 and loads software on the SIM that turns the handset into a mobile pay phone. Operators will tie up with local entrepreneurs to offer a `business in a box’ that contains everything required to start a shared access, including the modified handset, solar power-backed charger and training material.
The Fund has undertaken similar projects in South Africa, Kenya and Algeria Established in October 2005, the GSMA Development Fund was built on the success of the Emerging Market Handset (EMH) programme, an initiative that successfully fostered the launch ofultra-low cost, sub US$30 handsets from Motorola
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