Knight-John, MalathyZainudeen, AyeshaKhan, Abu Saeed2010-02-262010-02-262005http://hdl.handle.net/10625/41884Copublished with LIRNEasiaThis 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...Text1 digital file (44 p. : ill.)enFINANCIAL SERVICESTELECOMMUNICATIONSINFORMATION TECHNOLOGYPOVERTY ALLEVIATIONRURAL AREASBANGLADESHWorking Paper