Is 2009 the year for mobile broadband?

Just as 2008 was the year of the big push in cell phone penetration, 2009 will be the year in which mobile phone users upgrade to broadband. Well, that's what the "mobile supply chains" hope for, at least.
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Mobile telephone is perhaps the brightest light in Indonesia's economy. But the industry's marketers and financiers are nervous. So far, they have not yet generated the "killer applications" (killer apps) that will cause billions of low-income cell phone users to upgrade to fast internet. Less then a decade ago, in Europe, a "telecoms bust" occurred sending telecom markets into the doldrums for years when cell phone users found no need to access internet through their cell phones.

In advanced markets, governments and universities did not have to get much involved in killer apps. They emerged from young entrepreneurs operating in teams. In developing countries the killer apps will not emerge unless the industry's marketers join forces with government and academia. Together they can find the key to satisfying users will also helping them achieve income and learning.

This time stakes are must higher -- both for the commercial sector and for society itself -- that this new Big Push in broadband will succeed.

According to Goldman Sachs, US$2.4 trillion has been spent within emerging markets in preparation for this year's effort to achieve a massive leapfrogging into high speed internet via cell phones. While the handset sales are declining among the affluent parts of the economy, mobile penetration in the low-income sector of emerging markets remains recession proof.

Recognizing this, some of the world's most successful companies -- Google, Facebook, Microsoft, HP, Intel -- have reshaped their products and services to piggyback on handset makers and telco operators. Noting the increased bandwidth made possible by the Asian American Gateway and Palapa Ring fiber optics projects, they hope to find ways to use the plentiful new capacity to meet the needs of the “next billion” consumers including those who earn just $1,000 per month.

Most of the country's wireless carriers are blitzing the media with promotions for embrace smart phones, embedded with Third Generation of "3G" fast internet. A bevy of industries from advertising, consumers products, and banking are waiting to turn mobile broadband into new revenue streams.

For the public at large, the stakes are even higher. Facing an inevitable recession, the Indonesian government can help its citizens inexpensively by entering into public-private partnerships with these commercial supply chains and rethinking telecommunications regulations to enhance the public benefit that emerges from mobile broadband.

They can activate a trend that the world bank calls "m-development" in which mobile technologies are used to bring interactive education to the uneducated, achieve massive small business growth among the poor, strengthen democracy, fight global warming. (See WorldBank.org/m-development.) The list goes on and on.

Achieving these beneficial applications is the aims of Investor Group Against Digital Divide (IGADD) which has emerged as an aggregator of the interests of ICST stakeholders in Indonesia (IGADD.org) Next month, IGADD will release its report Meaningful Broadband, sponsored by Nokia Siemens and BRI bank, that identifies ways that the Indonesian public could benefit form broadband.

Here are two mobile broadband killer apps that could be shaped through public/private partnerships to benefit low-income citizens:

Mobile Banking: Mobile banking is already take off rapidly in low-income sectors where it meets pent-up demand; it could accelerate more quickly and more meaningfully with broadband.

Most citizens in developing countries (and an estimated 65% of Thais) are unbanked. Those of us with bank accounts take them for granted. But the unbanked are stuck in an informal economy that often keeps them trapped in poverty.

But a billion low-income cell phone users could easily get the benefits of banking in just five years, according to the World Resources Institute's Allen Hammond.

For banks that coax users to mobile banking, transaction costs drop from 33 baht per customer (when a bank branch is used) to less then one baht per customer when the transaction occurs over the mobile phone.

Already companies like Wizzit, in South Africa, and GCash, in the Philippines, have started programs that allow customers to use their phones to store cash credits transferred from another phone or purchased through a post office, phone-kiosk operator or other licensed operator.

There are a lot of hurdles that stand in the way of mobile banking, such as the creation of secure, non-fraudulent payment systems which could be achieved through close coordination between telecom operators, banks, and governmental central banks.

But the more significant need is that villages need a "point of presence" to help the unbanked become comfortable with mobile banking and to adopt new attitudes and skills that lead them towards accumulating savings, responsible use of credit, and small business skills. Government should rethink their total economic development strategies in light of mobile banking and the introduction of broadband into mobile banking systems.

Spiritual Computing: The second killer ap may surprise you: It is spiritual computing. It refers to mobile applications support the spiritual and religious values and rituals of users.

Bakrie Telco quickly added four million users in the crowded Indonesian market by incorporating Arabic chanting and five times a day prayer alerts into the company's cell phones for low income users.

Users get messages and slogans sent to them every day to support 24/7 observance of ethical principles. In Europe, Ramadan web sites are flourishing in which users share the experience of the fasting month through social networking.

There are lots of other potential killer aps too. Most of them regard online gaming and multimedia applications that bridge the gap between education and entertainment. Since the next billion users have less formal education, they don't have the cognitive skills that allow them to benefit fully from text-based communications.

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BY Craig Warren Smith, Washington D.C.

Source：The Jakarta Post.com