Review of current use of mobile telephony in developing regions (original) (raw)

Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature

The Information Society, 2008

This paper reviews roughly 200 recent studies of mobile (cellular) phone use in the developing world, and identifies major concentrations of research. It categorizes studies along two dimensions. One dimension distinguishes studies of the determinants of mobile adoption from those that assess the impacts of mobile use, and from those focused on the interrelationships between mobile technologies and users. A secondary dimension identifies a subset of studies with a strong economic development perspective. The discussion considers the implications of the resulting review and typology for future research.

T Tw wo o T Tw wo o MOBILE TELEPHONY ACCESS AND USAGE IN AFRICA

2009

This paper uses data from nationally representative household surveys conducted in 17 African countries to analyse mobile adoption and usage. The paper shows that countries differ in their levels of ICT adoption and usage and also in factors that influence adoption and usage. Income and education vastly enhance mobile adoption but gender, age and membership of social networks have little impact. Income is the main explanatory variable for usage. In terms of mobile expenditure the study also finds linkages to fixed-line, work and public phone usages. These linkages need, however, to be explored in more detail in future. Mobile expenditure is inelastic with respect to income, ie the proportion of mobile expenditure to individual income increases less than 1% for each 1% increase in income. This indicates that people with higher income spend a smaller proportion of their income on mobile expenditure compared to those with less income. The study provides tools to identify policy intervention to improve ICT take-up and usage and defines universal service obligations based on income and monthly usage costs. It helps to put a number to what can be expected from lower access and usage costs in terms of market volume and number of new subscribers. Linking this to other economic data such as national household income and expenditure surveys and GDP calculation would allow forecast of the economic and social impact of policy interventions. Key policy interventions would be regulatory measures to decrease access and usage costs, rural electrification and policies to increase ICT skills of pupils and teachers.

Mobile Telephony Access & Usage in Africa

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

Mobile expenditure-Robust regression results for each country using sampling weights R 2 Prob >F Nationally representative household surveys in 17 African countries during the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008.

The Impact of Mobile Phone Uses in the Developing World

International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development

In recent years, the rise of information and communication technologies (ICTs) contrasted with the dire living conditions of the world's poorest has been the subject of debate among industry and academia. However, despite the amount of writings produced on mobile phones, Western bias is surprisingly unbridledly prevailing alongside the fêted dissemination of mobile phones. Expansive literature tends to present the rapid adoption of mobile phones among rural individuals, with little to no indication of how local values and voices are respected or promoted. We undertook semi-structured interviews with 16 rural chiefs to inquire into ways in which mobile phones enabled socio-economic development in the rural Congo. Rather than using quantitative, large-scale, or top-down data, we sought to give voice to chiefs themselves about the role of mobile phones. We found that Western bias dominates the literature and deployment of mobile phones more than usually acknowledged. We suggested s...

Patterns of Mobile Phone Use in Developing Countries: Evidence from Africa

Social Indicators Research, 2013

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Research on Mobile Phone Data in the Global South

The Oxford Handbook of Networked Communication, 2018

The rapid uptake of mobile phones in the global South—that is, developing countries located primarily in the Southern Hemisphere—is a fact that is often repeated in popular discourse as well as academic research. In the years since it became a favorite factoid, there have been shifts in some of the most well-known patterns of use, with new data being created and collected. To a large extent, communication and information researchers have yet to fully address the opportunities and challenges regarding these changes. This chapter outlines some of the shifts in usage trends, what kinds of data they generate, and what kinds of questions they can help answer about social and economic ties, mobility and location, and innovation and design. These can strengthen theorizing new communication practices and generate greater knowledge about life in a networked age for those in resource-constrained environments.

MOBILE TELEPHONY ACCESS AND USAGE IN AFRICA

2009

This paper uses data from nationally representative household surveys conducted in 17 African countries to analyse mobile adoption and usage. The paper shows that countries differ in their levels of ICT adoption and usage and also in factors that influence adoption and usage. Income and education vastly enhance mobile adoption but gender, age and membership of social networks have little

hi Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature

The Information Society, 2008

The paper reviews roughly 200 recent studies of mobile (cellular) phone use in the developing world, and identifies major concentrations of research. It categorizes studies along two dimensions. One dimension distinguishes studies of the determinants of mobile adoption from those that assess the impacts of mobile use, and from those focused on the interrelationships between mobile technologies and users. A secondary dimension identifies a sub-set of studies with a strong economic development perspective. The discussion considers the implications of the resulting review and typology for future research. Boyera, Stéphane. 2007. The mobile web to bridge the digital divide? Paper read at IST-Africa Conference 2007, 09-11 May, at Maputo, Mozambique. Brown, Irwin, Zaheeda Cajee, Douglas Davies, and Shaun Stroebel. 2003. Cell phone banking: Predictors of adoption in South Africa--an exploratory study. International Journal of Information Management 23 (5):381-394. Caporael, Linnda R., and Bo Xie. 2003. Breaking time and place: Mobile technologies and reconstituted identities. In Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication technology, edited by J. E. Katz. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Cartier, Carolyn, Manuel Castells, and Jack Linchuan Qiu. 2005. The information have-less: Inequality, mobility, and translocal networks in Chinese cities. Studies in Comparative International Development 40 (2):9-34.