Rural India: Mobile phone is the Great Equalizer

The disparities in infrastructure and opportunity between urban and rural India, seemed unbridgeable for decades, until mobile phone came along and offered solutions.

CThe Kissan Kerala YouTube Channel is a popular mobile phone resource ommunication is the key to Admittedly less empowerment and mobile than 40% of Internet connections in phone is the great equalizer. India are mobile Internet connections, In just about a decade, Indibut that is a gap that will close fast, as ans have made the country, new technologies like TV White Spaces the fastest growing market for mobile – the spare and unlicensed bandwidth phones -- in size, second only to China. left over as TV moves from analogue to In mid 2015, cell phone subscriptions digital transmission – are used by the crossed a billion and TRAI and AIMAI Indian government working with comhad forecasted in November 2015 itself panies like Microsoft to bring Internet that by December 31, 2015, India will to some 50,000 villages. IIT Bombay has overtake US in the number of Internet done a study to establish the feasibility connections. Here is a quick look on the of bringing “Digital India” to Rural Areas. rural development impact. A pilot is already underway in Andhra

TV White Spaces:

Pradesh linking four educational institutions in Srikalulam district.

India has also approved trials by Google to bring its Project Loon here – a scheme to provide Internet access to vast rural stretches of the land by floating balloons at around 30 km above the earth. Together these two projects are expected to reach some level of maturity in 2016 – and ensure that the mobile phone in the hands of an Indian rural user is an Internet-connected device.

This is important because a phone by itself is just a voice call and texting tool

Project Loon: