Have mobile, will travel

The great leveller technology of our times

Venu lives in Malleswaram, Bangalore. For the past one and a half years he has been using a mobile phone.

In the beginning, he got himself a Reliance connection because it seemed to be the more economical one. After about six months though, he shifted to a brand new Airtel prepaid connection, buying himself a second hand Ericsson.

For this 32-year-old, who makes his living as an autorickshaw driver, the cell phone has become pretty much the biggest pride factor of his life. And what's more, he is no exception.

Over the last five years, mobile phones have grown to become one of the most preferred forms of personal forms of communication in the country. In the last couple of years, they have grown into veritable fashion accessories for the youth who pride in owning the latest of these gadgets.

But while this more obvious mobile revolution has been taking shape, a more silent one has been going on beneath the surface. On its way to becoming a mature industry, service providers have been slashing prices almost everyday to rope in more subscribers.

In the process, they have unwittingly made mobile phones the leveller of our times by making them increasingly accessible to the lower income groups. And nowhere is this adaptation more remarkable than the way Bangalore's auto drivers have began using it. They are thus on their way to becoming 'fully mobile' in a new kind of way.

Centre for Knowledge Studies (CKS), a Bangalore-based organisation, conducted a research to understand the patterns of mobile usage among autorickshaw drivers in the city and came up with fascinating discoveries.

"It is quite amazing to see how mobile phones are being used by these drivers. We conducted the survey among some 200 people and have made a documentary on it," says Zeenat Hasan, ex-operations head of CKS, who was responsible for driving the research among autorickshaw drivers.

The research established three important findings. One, while drivers initially purchase the mobile phone as a technology to help keep in touch with their family when they are working late, it eventually turns into an aid to earning a little more.

"Once they get mobile phones, these drivers give out their phone numbers to customers. These customers call them and if they are in the nearby area, they come and pick them up. Thereby, it becomes a secondary revenue generator for them, especially during late nights when custom would normally be low or non-existent," says Hasan.

This consequentially led to the second finding, that the drivers route structure around the city changes dramatically. It becomes more standardised and restricted to certain areas as repeat business among regular customers increases due to the easy reach facilitated by the mobile phone.

In a city where metered taxis are restricted to a few radio taxi firms which are not really taking off, the autorickshaw driver with his mobile phone is rapidly stepping in to fill the gap.

The third important finding of the research was the choice of service providers among auto drivers. "Almost all of them start out with a Reliance connection. But within three months, many of them abandon the connection for a prepaid GSM one. Mostly the choice is Airtel. They are pretty thrilled by the idea of seeing their bill immediately after making calls, especially since some of them give their phones to customers to use during late night trips, and find that it helps them keep track of their expense better," says Hasan.

CKS has done the research and the documentary in the belief that understanding of usage among communities such as these will drive service providers and mobile manufacturers alike to modify their offerings enough to increase penetration.

"A number of products and services can be developed keeping in mind the drivers' needs and desires. For example, we found that these drivers call up their friends to pass on messages to their families. That provides the idea of a double pack""one for him and one for his house," Hasan speculated. She also suggests more multilingual services and better local language interfaces for these drivers, along with simpler and cheaper phones.

"Careful planning and production of useful technology will certainly increase its adoption," she added. CKS continues working on other research projects including one on how mobile phones may be used for education in developing countries.

The pilot project for this is scheduled to begin in Bastar, Chattisgarh, later this year. They plan on opening a 'design history museum' in their Bangalore office to showcase media devices used in India over the years. CKS, which also does research on emerging markets for MNCs, believes that technology has to be adapted and tweaked to reach people not living in big towns.

Even as mobile phones become increasingly accessible, mainly due to aggressive price cuts, research such as that done by CKS suggests that there is still quite a bit of ground that manufacturers and service providers can access.

They can help mobile phones become a ubiquitous technology while growing their own markets.