Mobile Oportunities 2.0
Building on the achievements of the Mobile Opportunities project, DIRSI’s Phase II research program seeks to extend the reach and scope of this project by launching a Mobile Opportunities 2.0 initiative.This initiative seeks to map the availability of mobile-based offerings beyond voice targeted at the poor in the LA region, and examine the best regulatory and policy practices conducive to faster deployment and wider use of these pro-poor services.
Overall, the key goal of the Mobile Opportunities 2.0 initiative is to identify the bottlenecks that limit expansion of mobile-based services targeted at the poor, and contribute to the body of knowledge required to design effective incentive mechanisms for promoting investments and service deployment.
- What are the supply-bottlenecks that limit deployment in the LAC region?
- What regulatory actions could be taken to support their development?
- Which public and private actors could play a role in service provisioning?
- To what extent are services available across different platforms (e.g. mobile, internet)?
- What is the trade-off between convenience, portability, cost and other factors?
- What are the conditions for replicating successful initiatives in other regions?
The first phase of the Mobile Opportunities project revealed that, despite high teledensity rates, the region lags significantly in the deployment of mobile-based services beyond voice targeted at the poor such as m-banking, m-government, m-health and m-education services.
This two-year initiative seeks to spur such deployment by:
- identifying best market and regulatory practices for the deployment of pro-poor mobile-based services in other developing regions;
- mapping the current availability of such services in the LA region and identifying the necessary conditions to replicate successful models from other emerging regions such as Africa and South Asia;
- conducting three (03) case studies to assess the impact and sustainability of emerging pro-poor m-banking and m-government initiatives in the LA region.
Expected Outputs:
Phase 1: A regional report mapping availability of m-banking applications in the LA region; a benchmark report on m-banking deployment in other developing regions.
Phase 2: Three (03) national case studies focusing on m-banking (countries to be identified in Phase 1); one (01) final report.
Expected completion date:
Lead researchers:
Below this text you will find information related to this project as it becomes available.
DIRSI research in Lima's "El Comercio"
Research on Peruvian demand for telecom services by Aileen Aguero, a researcher from DIRSI, who is current working at LIRNEasia for six months, has made it into El Comercio, one of Peru's leading newspapers.
Mobile Opportunities 2.0: Mapping of mobile applications initiatives to banking and other sectors
Objetivo: El objetivo es identificar las iniciativas de uso del teléfono móvil en la inclusión bancaria de poblaciones pobres y marginalizadas. La identificación comprende la descripción de la iniciativa y las condiciones regulatorias, tanto en telecomunicaciones como en banca, que la permiten. Junto a esto, también es importante identificar condiciones de los usuarios que facilitan las iniciativas. El trabajo es básicamente de gabinete, con intensas búsquedas en Internet.
Last reviewed / Última revisión 16.10.09
