Article
It’s a billion dollar question: how do the poor of the planet use their mobile phones? A South Asian study conducted in India and Sri Lanka that looks at telecom users with monthly incomes of less than $100 says that over half the respondents do not even own the phone they use. Conducted by the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies LIRNEasia, the survey covered 3,199 people – and seven diverse districts of India and four in Sri Lanka. It found that 31 percent of fixed owners and seven percent of mobile owners allow non-family members to use their phones. “Keeping in touch” with friends and family locally was the biggest use of telephones.