Investigation of the replicability of a microfinance approach to extending telecommunications access to marginal customers, version 3.1
Date
2005
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies (WDR), Lyngby, DK
Abstract
This study is an attempt to examine and document particular sets of solutions that have emerged for the extension of telecommunications access to marginal customers in Bangladesh, under the Grameen Village Phone (VP) program. The VP program has been successful in providing access to telecommunications to over 45 percent of the villages in Bangladesh through providing microfinance to villagers to purchase a mobile phone and a GrameenPhone connection, which is then operated as a payphone, providing access to fellow villagers for a charge. This is particularly impressive in a country that had 3.44 telecom (fixed plus mobile) subscribers per one hundred inhabitants in 2004. The VP program has been hailed as a unique case in the development of rural telecom infrastructure...
Description
Copublished with LIRNEasia
item.page.type
Working Paper
item.page.format
Text
Keywords
FINANCIAL SERVICES, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, POVERTY ALLEVIATION, RURAL AREAS, BANGLADESH