The ‘poor man’s mobile telephone’: Access versus possession to control the information gap in India

Wireless in Local Loop (WiLL), a radio communications solution with implications
for the provision of cheaper telephony in urban and rural areas, has become a topic of
a debate in India over what has become known as the ‘Poor Man’s Mobile Phone’. This paper
examines access to ‘telematics’ (not simple phone ownership), the validity of ‘teledensity’ as
a statistical tool, the view that rural people are too poor to justify phone infrastructure, and
the validity of cross-subsidy arguments from city to rural areas. The need to seek overseas
investment is questioned, since developing countries can avoid expensive foreign telecommunications
equipment through low-cost, high-quality, indigenous telematics equipment production.
India, for instance, has installed more than 20 million such indigenous phone lines,
saving billions of dollars. Internet, not just phone, connectivity, is essential for rural people
to increase earnings. Politics, price, technical differences, and internet access are examined
in relation to two competing WiLL products: India’s corDECT, and the American/South
Korean CDMA. Finally, it is suggested that the information gap cannot be ‘bridged’. Instead,
developing countries will have to wrest control of the web for their own regions.