Upwardly mobile

“I use my mobile as a kind of personal diary,” he said in a recent interview.

And in India, a fisherman named Jayan Kadavunkassery is equally effusive about his mobile, though for entirely different reasons.

“The two crucial changes that have happened in my lifetime,” said Kadavunkassery, 37, an Andavan crewman who was interviewed by the Washington Post, “are the inboard motor and the mobile phone.”

Jayan said that before he got his first cell phone a few years ago, he would arrive at port with a load of fish and hope for the best, not knowing that dealers in the next port could be offering twice as much.

Now he calls several ports while he’s still at sea to find the best prices, playing the dealers against one another to drive up the price.

Generalizing about something as big and complex as “connectivity” is a tricky business – it means one thing to Cooper and still other things to Kadavunkassery. There are socioeconomic variations in usage and different attitudes between rural and urban dwellers, and young/old, male/female, blue/white collar differences continue to segment the connected world into smaller and smaller groups of people, each with its own set of wants, needs and attitudes towards “connectivity” and what it means to be connected.

Still, broadly speaking there are two undeniable global trends:
• People have an ever-increasing appetite for connectivity
• People will use services that enhance the quality of their lives

These trends are undeniable. Just look at the headlines: India signs up record 10 million new mobile users in October, 2008; Bangladesh signs up 8 million in August – this, in spite of the global economic slowdown.

And this appetite for connectivity is manifesting itself everywhere. Look at the exponential growth in demand for 3G services in more mature markets – again even after the so-called credit crunch hit. What’s more, according to a recent survey by Nokia Siemens Networks, in spite of the downturn people in these developed economies predict they will demand even more access in the next twelve months.

Connectivity is an important part of people’s lives, whether they live in emerging or developed countries, and in spite of economic uncertainty.

And mobile connectivity, in particular, is helping people do more, indeed even enjoy life more, than they ever have before.

One way to think of this is mobile devices and services are enabling a better life for people – not so much “connecting” devices but enabling devices that help people accomplish more than they could ever accomplish on their own.

This is true of artist James Cooper, fisherman Jayan Kadavunkassery, and the other four billion people connected in all parts of the world: to each and in his or her own way, connectivity enables a better life.

Flip side of the coin

But connectivity doesn’t always meet the expectations that people have for it, (on devices, service fees and taxes) no matter where they live. Research shows that many people in Morocco are unhappy with the quality of their internet service – so instead of enabling a better life for them, connectivity is in a sense doing the opposite: research shows their broadband connection is a source of frustration for most Moroccans.

Another issue that operators and other stakeholders can address is affordability – bringing down the amount that people need to spend (on devices, software, subscription fees, taxes, etc.) in order to gain and maintain access.

The most successful operators will take their cues from end users themselves. In markets where penetration is high, innovative services, and unified charging and billing plans, can mean as much to the success of a operator as affordability can mean to people in emerging markets.

The evidence is clear: if people are given access to affordable services that really matter to them, they will use these services in abundance to help enhance the quality of their lives, no matter if they live in London or a village six hundred miles from Lahoor.