VAS Boom In Rural India
Sign in
  • BLOG
  • Editor's Picks
  • |
  • Technology
  • |
  • Entrepreneurship
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Finance
  • |
  • Career
  • |
  • New India
  • |
  • Entertainment
  • |
  • Others

    • VAS boom in rural India

    Shivraj Singh

    Project Manager
     Mobile networks are growing, and ultra low cost handsets and electronic micro-recharge services to pay for minutes makes it increasingly easy for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid to afford mobile service. Soon, 60 per cent of India’s expected 650 million subscribers will be rural. Value added services using Interactive voice response (IVR) technology lets largely illiterate populations access vital economic, money transfer, educational, health,government and entertainment services using the languages and dialects prevalent in different rural regions.

     Some of the major VAS products already in the rural market are:

    • Reuters Market Light (RML) - Reuters has dispensed comprehensive agriculture-related   information on a pilot basis in Maharashtra since April 2007

    • IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited - a joint venture between Bharti Airtel and IFFCO to provide rural-specific telecom   services to rural households; is set to expand rural coverage from 3.2 lakh to 5 lakh villages by 2010;

    • Soochna Se Samadhan - by One World Network in collaboration with Reliance Mobile since 2006;

    • Mandi on Mobile service - by the state run  BSNL in Uttar Pradesh

    • Fisher Friend project - a pilot project launched in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry aimed at the fishing community; and

    • LifeTools - by Nokia, a package providing agricultural information and educational services, slated to be commercially launched in 2009
    prevnew
    start_blog_img