1. Week 11 Presentation
CASE STUDY:
The Social and Economic Implications of
Mobile Telephony in Rwanda: An
Ownership/Access Typology
Jonathan Donner
By Tani Crotty

2. Key concepts
 Four categories of telephony ownership & access in Rwanda:
 Private phone owners – landline and/or mobile handset
 New mobile-only owners
 Public phone users
 Telephone non-users
 Benefits of telecommunications to communities:
 Economic
 Social
 Collective community (health)

3. Benefits of mobile telephony adoption
 Economic
 Pre-pay plans allow users the affordability without locked in contracts –
many lack basics of bank account or mail service to receive bills
 Save on international calls, consistently lower rates than landlines
 Trade between rural and urban markets – rural farmers can cut travel
costs by staying in touch with markets via text msg, reduces the
bargaining power of the middleman
 Business owners have direct contact with clients – eg. taking bookings
for food orders, hair services, car maintenance etc

4. Benefits of mobile telephony adoption
Video examples:
„The Maasai Go Mobile‟
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J2f8W43gwk
„Hello Africa‟
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGEg2PDbMA

5. Benefits of mobile telephony adoption
 Social
Frequent connection with family and friends – increased mobile
connection versus face to face connection
 Helps maintain family relationships – eg. Many families are split
pursuing business opportunities elsewhere
 Allows ability to maximise social connection with minimal cost –
„beeping‟ (prank call), „phatic communication‟, inclusion of non-mobile
users (beep from pay phone)

6. Benefits of mobile telephony adoption
 Collective community
 Health – development of a telecommunications system between
central urban hospitals and rural clinics to support the treatment of
HIV/AIDS saving livings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7qBnNjq7MQ
• South Africa – using text messages to coordinate patient care
• Uganda – using wireless enabled PDAs to provide information to rural
caregivers

7. Community perceptions
Overall benefits of mobiles
 Increased social status, affluence
 Security
 Constant contact – business and family
 Increased mobility
Interesting further reading:
David Morley (2011) – Mobility of technology & the notion of „placelessness‟
“we all now live in a new cyber world of „placelessness‟, where material geography counts for very
little as a determinant of social or cultural life”

8. Continuing Issues in Rwanda
 Mobile theft
 Telecommunication services limited – mobile signal availability –
initially huge disparity across Africa but in recent years has
improve
 Cost
 Socio economic factors – still a great divide between urban and
rural

9. Africa & mobile use
 In 1999, 10 percent of the African population had mobile phone
coverage
 Today over 70% of the population has mobile phone coverage –
fasted growing mobile use adoption in the world (60% use mobiles
for social media and other internet services)
 This high level of adoption appears to be correlated with the poor
quality of landline services – fewer than 3 landline services per
100 people
 eg. Kenyan firms reported an average of 36 days of interrupted landline service
per year, with interruptions lasting an average of 37 hours.
 Employment, „m-banking‟, environment shocks (affecting planting
and yields)
Source: Aker & Mbiti (2010)

10. A cultural comparison
 Indigenous Australians & phone use
 Indigenous people have more access to mobile phones over any other digital
technology (despite than high cost)
 More females than males have mobile phones in Aust (Rwanda – more males than
females)
 Shared amongst households & families (communal activity)
 Strong social benefits:
 Connect with family and friends – high priority
 Multimedia applications – music, videos & photos (esp. when out of credit + the
creation of videos/photos in communities)
 Text messaging – however not a significant reason to purchase (perhaps due to
low literacy levels)
 Emergencies – especially important in remote communities
 Economic benefits: eg. for work = nil
 Valued literacy / educational tool:
 Multimodal capabilities of mobile phones supplement limited print literary
resources/ lack of education facilities in remote locations
Source: Auld et al (2012)

11. Coverage comparison
1 billion people 22,769,193 people

12. Summary:
Trends in mobile use
Rwanda/Africa (1999-2012) Australia (2010-11)
 Mobile phone coverage/usage  Mobile phone usage increased by 226
increased from 10% to 70% of per cent in 1 year
population  # of Australians living in households
without a fixed-line telephone service
 Majority of mobile users are mobile- increased by 17 per cent to reach 2.7
only users million
 96 per cent of Australians aged 18–34
 Rapid decrease in landline use – years used a mobile phone
due to poor infrastructure and  Volume SMS and multimedia messages
exponential growth of mobile sent increased by 23 per cent to reach
coverage in Africa 36.3 billion
 # of payphones in operation in Australia
 Main uses – work/business, decreased by five per cent to 33,201
family/friend connection and social
media
Disparity between urban and remote usage remain
on par

13. Discussion
 How many people own landlines or live in a house with a landline?
 Why do you have a landline?
 When was the last time you used a landline?
 Has anyone not used a landline?
 When was the last time you used a payphone? Why?
 How old were you when you got your first mobile phone?
 What are the main uses of your mobile phone?
„iDisorder‟ Dr Larry Rosen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9LFbxOt00E

14. References
 Aker, J and Mbiti, I.M. 2010, „Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa‟, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 24, Number 3,
Summer 2010, pp.207–232, accessed 30 September 2012, http://sites.tufts.edu/jennyaker/files/2010/09/aker_mobileafrica.pdf
 ‘Assignment Rwanda: Using Mobiles to Combat AIDS’, 2008, television program, Telecom TV, 24 September,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7qBnNjq7MQ
 Auld, G, Snyder, I and Henderson, M 2012, „Using mobile phones as placed resources for literacy learning in a remote Indigenous community in
Australia‟, Language and Education, 26:4, pp.279-296, accessed 30 September 2012, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2012.691512>
 ‘Communications Report 2010-11’, 2011, Australian Communications and Media Authority report, accessed 29 September 2012,
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib410148/executive_summary.pdf
 Donner, J 2006, „The Social and Economic Implications of Mobile Telephony in Rwanda: An Ownership/Access Typology‟, Knowledge, Technology,
& Policy, Summer 2006, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp.17–28.
 Donner, J 2007, „The Use of Mobile Phones by Microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to Social and Business Networks‟, Information
Technologies and International Development, Volume 3, Number 2, Winter 2006, pp.3–19.
 ‘Family, Kinship and Community’, 2008, Australian Bureau of Statistics, accessed 29 September 2012,
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Family,%20kinship%20and%20community~247
 ‘Hello Africa - Mobile Phone Culture in Africa’, 2011, documentary, Information and Technologies for Development,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIGEg2PDbMA
 Komolafe, K 2012, „Hillary Clinton talks #genocideprevention through social media‟, McClatchy Newspapers online, 24 July, accessed 30 September
2012, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/24/157495/hillary-clinton-talks-genocideprevention.html
 Morley, D 2011. „Communications and transport: The mobility of information, people and commodities‟, Media Culture Society 2011 33: 743,
accessed online 20 September 2012, http://mcs.sagepub.com.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/content/33/5/743.full.pdf+html
 ‘The Maasai Go Mobile - An African Journey With Jonathan Dimbleby - BBC Two’, 2010, television program, BBC Two, 3 June,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J2f8W43gwk>