Understanding rural telephone use

Mobile telephone networks in most low income countries have expanded enormously. Many people, even in poor communities, now regularly make calls. But what difference do telephones make to people’s lives? And are they important for development?

A research project funded by the UK Department for International Development examined rural people’s attitudes towards phones in India, Mozambique and Tanzania. Most people interviewed value telephones primarily for dealing with emergencies and keeping in touch with their families. They do not generally use phones for business activities, although a small proportion does value them highly for this purpose. Phones are valued more for saving money than for earning it. Very few people find them useful for gathering information.

Phones are displacing letters as a means of exchanging social information, particularly to maintain contact with scattered family members. Keeping in touch by phone is particularly valued in Mozambique and Tanzania, where many rural people have migrated to cities or abroad. One third of the study’s respondents in these two countries receive remittances from absent family members, and some use the telephone to help arrange them.

People surveyed in Mozambique and Tanzania prefer face-to-face communication for obtaining information specific to their needs. Over half the people interviewed get their information from face-to-face contact with teachers, extension workers, customers and business partners for farming, business, education and government matters.

Researchers also found that:

• Phone ownership is growing rapidly and a high proportion of people who do not own a phone aspire to do so in the near future.
• There is a distinct group of ‘high intensity users’ – those who own their own phone rather than go to kiosks or neighbours and use it more than once a day: they tend to belong to the wealthiest and best educated social level.
• Radio in African countries and television in India, are still by far the most widely used ICTs and are the principal sources of general information such as news and the weather. People attach high value to broadcasting and, in the research countries at least, have confidence in mass media.

Communication flows are much slower to change than communication technologies. Policymakers should realise that universal access has substantial social value, irrespective of revenue telecommunications operators derive from it. This social value is distinct from the use of telephones as tools for business development and income generation.

Policymakers should also acknowledge:

• the extent to which people value face-to-face communication and broadcasting
• that the Internet, even when available, has not become part of the daily lives of the vast majority of rural people: barriers to use include cost, skill requirements and lack of valued content
• poor people are willing and able to spend a higher proportion of their income on telephony than richer people
• ‘development’ is not just about improving incomes, but boosting people’s capacity to deal with crises and maintaining social ties: this is the key value of phone access for rural people
• the risk that ICTs could contribute to the growth of inequality.

Source(s):
‘The economic impact of telecommunications on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction: a study of rural communities in India (Gujarat), Mozambique and Tanzania’, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, by David Souter, et al., October 2005  (full report) Full document.
‘The economic impact of telecommunications on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction’, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, by David Souter et al., June 2005 (summary) Full document.
‘Telephones and livelihoods: how telephones improve life for rural people in developing countries’, PANOS Brief, 2005 Full document.

Funded by: UK Department for International Development, KaR Project 8347

id21 Research Highlight: 10 February 2006

Further Information:
David Souter
ict Development Associates Ltd
145 Lower Camden
Chislehurst
Kent, BR7 5JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8467 1148
Fax: +44 (0) 20 8249 0891
Contact the contributor: david.souter@runbox.com

ict Development Associates ltd, UK

Nigel Scott
Gamos Ltd
231 Kings Road
Reading,
Berkshire, RG1 4LS
UK

Tel: +44(0)118 926 7039
Contact the contributor: Nigel@gamos.org

Gamos Ltd, UK

Kojo Boakye
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation
Clareville House
26 – 27 Oxendon Street
London SW1Y 4EL
UK

Tel: +44 20 7930 5511
Fax: +44 20 7930 4248
Contact the contributor: boakye@cto.int

Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation

Other related links:
'Do marginal communities make good markets for telecommunications services?'

'Mobiles and markets – providers of telephones for Africa’s rural poor?'

'Beyond the digital divide: harnessing ICTs for rural development'

'Beyond being ‘open for business’: monitoring the impact of telecentres'

'Can community telecentres reach the most disadvantaged in Africa?'

'ICTs in Tanzania: donor optimism or democratic development?'