- Can mobile phones narrow the digital divide?, By Omar L. Gallaga, July 3, 2010, Austin American-Statesman: “Jared Esquivel has had his new cell phone, a white Nokia Nuron, for only a week. But it’s the fifth one he’s owned since he was 10 years old. Jared is 16. The Travis High School student uses the phone to text family members, check in constantly on Facebook and view World Cup scores on ESPN’s mobile website. His family’s T-Mobile account includes phones for his sister, mother, father and grandmother. Most of them are enabled for unlimited Web access and texting. When Jared and his 13-year-old sister both need to use the family’s aging computer for homework, their mother, Juanita Esquivel, sends one of them to the mobile Web. ‘One of them would be up until 2 in the morning because the other one was sitting there using their computer,’ Juanita said. ‘I eventually was like, ‘Just use your phone!” The country has been swept up into an intoxicating romance with cell phones, especially smart phones such as Apple ‘s iPhone 4, with 1.7 million units sold in its first three days on the market. A global study by research firm Gartner Inc. suggests that by as soon as 2013, mobile devices will overtake personal computers as the most common way people access the Internet. But nowhere in the U.S. is the shift from desktop and laptop computers to cell phones making as much of an impact as in Latino households like Jared’s or in African American and low-income households, in which the cell phone is often the primary tool used to get online…”
- Pew study finds rapid increase in mobile Internet use by low-income Americans, By Matt Hamblen, July 9, 2010, Computerworld: “Wireless access to the Internet has long been seen as a potential economic bridge for disadvantaged groups in those regions of the world that lack a wired infrastructure. For example, in poorer countries like Haiti, where landlines are limited, three mobile service providers have moved to widely offer the ability for cell phone users to complete wireless banking and e-commerce transactions. Some observers note that low-income groups in the U.S. can also gain profound benefits from wireless access by using some key applications. This week, the Pew Research Center in Washington said that a survey of 2,252 adults over 18 in April and May found that low-income groups in the U.S. are now the fastest adopters mobile Web devices. The survey found that 46% of households earning less than $30,000 a year are wireless Internet users. That lowest income group surveyed was the fastest growing — up by 11 percentage points from 35% in April 2009…”
Tag: Cellular phones
Cellular Phone Service and the Poor
Advocates say poor need available free cell phones, By Alfred Lubrano, June 14, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Should the poor have cell phones? It’s a question that has engaged both ends of the political spectrum since 2004, when the conservative Heritage Foundation published a controversial paper saying the poor enjoy ‘high living standards’ and cited as proof that many have cell phones, among other things. In rebuttal, advocates for the poor have argued that cell phones are not luxuries but necessities, as basic to modern life as electricity. Complicating the debate these days is a new development: free cell phones for the poor and working poor distributed by a Miami wireless company. They’re paid for, in part, by charges on phone bills that the federal government allows carriers to levy. It’s a little-known collaboration between the federal government and phone carriers, devised by the Reagan administration 26 years ago…”
Mobile Banking – Kenya
Mobile banking closes poverty gap, By Jane Wakefield, May 28, 2010, BBC News: “Mobile banking has transformed the way people in the developing world transfer money and now it is poised to offer more sophisticated banking services which could make a real difference to people’s lives. Currently 2.7bn people living in the developing world do not have access to any sort of financial service. At the same time 1bn people throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia own a mobile phone. As a result, mobile money services are springing up all over the developing world. According to mobile industry group the GSMA there are now 65 mobile money systems operating around the globe, with a further 82 about to be launched. Most offer basic services such as money transfers, which are incredibly important for migrant workers who need to send cash back to their families. M-Pesa in Kenya is perhaps the most famous of these and it has attracted 9.4 million Kenyans in just under three years. Now it is ready to move to the next stage. M-Pesa, has recently partnered with Kenya’s Equity Bank to offer subscribers a savings account, called M-Kesho…”