Fair mobile discussion at m4change Cape Town

[Steve Song]

Hi all,

I've tried to capture the key points raised at the Fair Mobile
discussion at m4change on the weekend. I've put it on the m4change
wiki at http://mobiletech4socialchange.pbworks.com/Fair-Mobile but am
also pasting the text below. Please feel free to edit, add, delete as
appropriate on the wiki.

Regards... Steve

----------------------
Attending the session were: Myself (Steve Song), Kevin Donovan,
Jonathan Donner, Melissa Loudon, Edwin Blake, Gavin Dudley, Glenn
Thompson, Michelle Matthews, Prabhas Pokharel and others whose name I
did not catch (please fill in)

Prefacing my introduction with the disclaimer that Fair Mobile is and
may remain a concept that means many things to many people, I
introduced the discussions that Katrin and I had been having around
equity in mobile markets and then presented my own perspective on
getting started with Fair Mobile which is mostly covered in this blog
post (http://manypossibilities.net/2009/10/fair-mobile-a-start/). My
suggestion was that we create an index of affordability of mobile
services based a simple ratio of the cost of a basket of voice and SMS
services that might represent a typical day's use over the average
wage at the bottom of the pyramid in a given country. This wage might
be calculated via published minimum wage, or the average wage of a day
labourer. Whichever the case, I want to get at the affordability of
mobile services for the poor and see if that ratio varies dramatically
across African countries and perhaps beyond. I got a lot of useful
feedback on the idea.

The point was made fairly early on that another approach to
campaigning for equity in access to affordable communications was to
take a human rights approach to the problem which would focus on
communication being inextricably linked to other basic human rights
such as freedom of expression, right to education, right to work,
etc. This would involve a campaign to establish the approach
government interventions and structures to ensure this right. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_Rights

Early on the Bridges.org Real Access definition (http://
www.bridges.org/Real_Access) came up and it remained a useful
touchstone in the conversation reminding us that access is not just a
phone or a PC but an ecosystem of issues including political, legal,
socio-cultural, etc.

Universal access was brought up in this context and the point was made
by a number of people that equitable access has not been well defined
in South Africa. Can you be said to have access if you have to walk
5km to make a phone call? This definition should be improved.

Gavin Dudley raised the question of whether the discussion was being
fair on the mobile operators. Are the mobile operators being unfair
in simply pursuing their business interests and maximising returns for
their shareholders?

Jonathan Donner expanded the conversation on the index by asking
whether there is a measureable correlation between "fairer" mobile
environments and call behaviour. If there are countries with
significantly cheaper access to mobile services as compared to income
at the bottom of the pyramid, would we see a significant difference in
call behaviour? Would people be making "better" calls?

Michele Matthews raised the point that in South Africa there is 25%
percent unemployment with the implication that income at the bottom of
the pyramid might as a result be lower than any published rate.

I asked whether there was a case to focus solely on SMS and bringing
down the cost of texting as an SMS is in many ways the natural
extension of the Internet in Africa. Jonathan wondered aloud if that
ship had not already sailed and whether we should rather focus on IP-
based services on phones which is already cheaper and less constrained
by mobile operators. Edwin pointed out that IP-based services were
complex to develop on phones given the vast heterogeneity of handsets.

Melissa Loudon pointed out that a Fair Mobile index dealt with the
high cost of mobile communications but asked what kind of advocacy
might be undertaken to combat the closed, proprietary, non-
transferable nature of the mobile operators as they currently exist.
One suggestion that emerged was the possibility of a non-profit WASP
that could aggregate demand for mobile services for non-profits.

Jonathan queried whether a basket approach access costs which bundled
voice and sms together might not be problematic in terms of losing the
possible nuance of variance in voice but not sms or vice versa in a
given coutry and perhaps the perceived arbitrariness of selecting x
number of minutes and y SMSes as a basket of services.

Jonathan also cautioned that once an index gains social traction,
people are less inclined to unpack and constructively critique the
thinking that went into creating the index. He encourage those
working on the index to be as transparent and inclusive as possible in
sharing the rationale and the sources for the index. He suggested that
encouraging others to experiment with their own indexes might not be a
bad thing. Finally he suggested that perhaps unbundling SMS and voice
from the index might be more useful, interesting.

[Paul Plantinga]

Hi Steve and all,

I agree that an affordability index is a useful advocacy tool. In future there may be a number of dimensions as noted...affordability, access, useability, privacy, security, 'greenness', openness, etc. There have even been campaigns around the manufacture of handsets...http://makeitfair.org/the-facts/news/thousands-of-consumers-call-for-fair-mobile-phones

You also mentioned a human rights-based approach as an alternative, but it may just be useful as a sensitising device. The Internet rights charter is a good example, and seems to be a fairly open process:

• http://www.apc.org/en/node/5677
• http://irc.wiki.apc.org/index.php/Main_Page
• http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/
  

Finally, I agree with Gavin's comment this may not be fair on the operators, and it may be worthwhile trying to get their input on the index. Is there a danger that we are adding to a hostile investment climate? In many countries the high margins are a good incentive for fast rollout of network infrastructure early on. So, it may be worthwhile setting index benchmarks for different stages of maturity of the industry in different countries. There may also be ways for encouraging capital investment vs. dividend payouts...

(Not sure if this discussion is mean to happen on the wiki?)

Cheers,

[Steve Song]

Hi Paul,

You always appear with useful resources! Yes, this would be the place
to carry on the dialogue. The invitation to edit the wiki was for
people who were at the session to add to or amend my record of it.

I agree that there is scope for a number of other dimensions each
arguably as important as affordability.

In terms of communications and human rights, Sean O'Siochru has also
thought and written a fair amount about this. See
http://vecam.org/article670.html

As far as fairness to the operators goes.... my inclination is to be
as open about the process for establishing the index as possible and
to be open to critique. As to whether we might be adding to a hostile
investment climate, I think that may be a bit of a stretch. I think a
lack of transparency contributes more to a hostile investment climate
than the other way around.

Cheers... Steve


2009/11/3 Paul Plantinga <pplan...@gmail.com>:

--
Steve Song
http://manypossibilities.net

[Katrin Verclas]

This is super interesting.  Thanks, Steve. 

A few comments:  

FairMobile was never conceived as just a cost index.  It was always meant to be, since our earliest conversations at MobileActive08, an attempt to define what an enabling environment looks like for mobile communication for end users, as well as organizations and companies attempting to use mobiles for social impact. 

Steve turned it into a matter of cost :) (just teasing). I envision cost just to be the first step because it's relatively easy to calculate.  However, we played around with many other indicators. 

We are putting up a site this week to elucidate on this, but in short:

FairMobile aims to:

• illustrate the current state of the mobile operating environment,
• identify the structural gaps in maximized use of mobile technology for civil society,
• provide specific recommendations to create a more enabling mobile environment,
• develop an advocacy campaign focused on winning concessions on these recommendations.

Paul and others during the MA08 session put up a set of data points on the old MobiuleActive.org wiki (which we took down for a variety of reasons) which we have since modified a bit to include data we can actually get access to :) 

Some key data points currently under consideration:

• Cost for voice and data services (cost per sms, average cost for 1-min voice, price basket based on OECD price basket, ARPU and AMPU)
• Costs and options for bulk-messaging, two-way messaging, etc.-- NOTE:  Most if this we have already but by country, not operator

o   Sources:  ITU, WorldBank, Wireless Intelligence, other vendors

• Access and coverage, quality of networks
• o   Source: GSMA coverage maps

• Privacy/freedom of speech (sim registration requirements, and assessments on surveilance/privacy etc)

o   Source? - NOTE:  Tough to get in any reliable fashion, original data collection, news reports, in-country sources

• Handset/SIM Access and reg requirements, handset taxation

o   Source: GSMA, country-by-country investigation

• Availability of services such as emergency call numbers, location-based services,etc

o   country-by-country investigation

• Operator earnings

o   Source: Wireless Intelligence

• Operator content-filtering policies

o   country-by-country investigation

 

• Technology Availability (data points that we have currently in hand and are about to publish)
• Geographic dispersion of network availability
• Technology Access/Use/Adoption
• Internet access/ use/ adoption
• Mobile access/ use/ adoption
• Social dispersion of technology use
• Use/Adoption requirements
• Human development (literacy, education, etc)
• Income generation (sectors of employment, levels of entrepreneurship, etc)
• Social and geographic income distribution

Data to be tracked will be broken down by: country, operator, and possibly wireless application service providers. Our initial focus will be on operator data.

The cost index is really just a start for what I would love to see eventually a much more in-depth inquiry.

However, as we have so far not been able to raise any funds for a researcher to actually do some of this data crunching in a focused and sensible way, Steve is starting relatively small and with something he is particularly interested in.

I see this as an iterative process and hence would also shy away from doing any sort of 'definitive' index that ranks operators or countries as I think this is not that useful in this context.

The point of putting together this data in the first place is to enable a discussion about what constitutes a fair mobile environment that enables social impact projects and human development, and give ammunition to efforts that might he happening within a given country.

Katrin

Katrin Verclas

Co-Founder and Editor

MobileActive.org

kat...@mobileactive.org

+ 1 413 687 9877

skype: katrinskaya

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