I was way too young in the eighties to understand the kind of socio-economic changes Sam Pitroda's telecom policy heralded then, even though the daily front-to-back reading of the The Statesman made me aware of the changes happening. Few years later when I left home to pursue my dream, the ubiquitous yellow booths by the roadside helped me understand the impact of the change brought in by the telecom man. By the nineties, every other rural house owned one of those yellow booths with PCO written in black, bold letters. That was their livelihood - a chance to get out of the crippling poverty cycle. And what a change that PCO revolution brought! If you look back, you will see how the PCO business mainstreamed the marginalised sections of the society, which included persons with disabilities.
I had left home to become a fighter pilot. From the cockpit of a Mirage or a MIG, the yellow specs (of what a booth would have looked like from high above) would never have been an important landmark in the pilot's screen. But if I were to know then that colour-blindness would eventually rob me of my dream, I would not have felt cheated. It is another matter that my aunt, who brought me up, still thinks that it is her fervent prayers to her God that quirked my fate and denied me my chance of flying one of the mean machines. She was ecstatic when I broke the news that I cannot join the Air Force on medical grounds!
By the time I completed my MBA and stepped into the corporate world, telecom had become the new glam industry to work for. And I was one of the few first lucky ones to be absorbed by the industry. Now you know the Sam Pitroda angle, that shaped my career. And for good. Thank you "Uncle Sam".
A decade later in the new millennium I landed up in Afghanistan to market mobile phones. This time my aunt's prayers did not help. I think even her God understood my destiny. But how do you sell PCO in an ultra conservative, orthodox society, where the buyers of the service have to step out of their homes to avail of the facility? Especially for women who are forbidden to come in contact with a male stranger. And most PCO owners were men of youth, full of vigour and vitality. In the few cases, where women owned the PCO, how could she sell the service to strange males who would walk up to the kiosk? But globally, telecom companies have shown the spunk to innovate when the dice is down. Afghanistan is no exception.
The most dreaded war that broke out in Afghanistan solved most of the riddles. The war took out an entire generation of able bodied males. There are millions of families in Afghanistan who have no male members. It was a bullet or a bomb that claimed them. It did not matter to the families whose bullet did the job - Taliban's or NATO forces'. For they bore the brunt of abject poverty in the absence of an earning male member. When faced with a no-choice situation, even religious or cultural strictures fail to clamp down the human spirit. Faced with poverty and the prospect of dying out of hunger, the mothers and the daughters found PCO as a saviour. At least it gave them a chance to live. Even if it meant that the young and beautiful daughters would never get a chance to get married. The conservative society would boycott them as they have broken one of the fundamental tenets of their religion. But look at the quirkiness - the war which brought them to the streets, also gave them the resolve to fight. Thanks to that change, you can find many Afghan girls enrolled in schools or even working in a corporate office. They had the disposable income to stand on their feet. They may not be married, but they live with dignity! You can even see widows ferrying SIM cards on the streets of Kabul. Telecom has surely revolutionised the lives of Afghan women.
That was then. Now with falling tariff and flooding of the market by cheap Chinese handsets, many are able to afford the mobile phones. Naturally, the PCO business is shrinking, and shrinking at a faster rate than what one could think of. We needed to innovate. Thus was born the Virtual PCO.
Virtual PCO enabled a PCO owner to have multiple virtual MSISDNs (mobile numbers) from one handset. So in effect, a PCO owner can distribute MSISDNs to multiple families who need not own a mobile connection. Just a handset can allow them to connect to the world outside! It is a win-win situation. It delivered few critical benefits:
I had left home to become a fighter pilot. From the cockpit of a Mirage or a MIG, the yellow specs (of what a booth would have looked like from high above) would never have been an important landmark in the pilot's screen. But if I were to know then that colour-blindness would eventually rob me of my dream, I would not have felt cheated. It is another matter that my aunt, who brought me up, still thinks that it is her fervent prayers to her God that quirked my fate and denied me my chance of flying one of the mean machines. She was ecstatic when I broke the news that I cannot join the Air Force on medical grounds!
By the time I completed my MBA and stepped into the corporate world, telecom had become the new glam industry to work for. And I was one of the few first lucky ones to be absorbed by the industry. Now you know the Sam Pitroda angle, that shaped my career. And for good. Thank you "Uncle Sam".
A decade later in the new millennium I landed up in Afghanistan to market mobile phones. This time my aunt's prayers did not help. I think even her God understood my destiny. But how do you sell PCO in an ultra conservative, orthodox society, where the buyers of the service have to step out of their homes to avail of the facility? Especially for women who are forbidden to come in contact with a male stranger. And most PCO owners were men of youth, full of vigour and vitality. In the few cases, where women owned the PCO, how could she sell the service to strange males who would walk up to the kiosk? But globally, telecom companies have shown the spunk to innovate when the dice is down. Afghanistan is no exception.
The most dreaded war that broke out in Afghanistan solved most of the riddles. The war took out an entire generation of able bodied males. There are millions of families in Afghanistan who have no male members. It was a bullet or a bomb that claimed them. It did not matter to the families whose bullet did the job - Taliban's or NATO forces'. For they bore the brunt of abject poverty in the absence of an earning male member. When faced with a no-choice situation, even religious or cultural strictures fail to clamp down the human spirit. Faced with poverty and the prospect of dying out of hunger, the mothers and the daughters found PCO as a saviour. At least it gave them a chance to live. Even if it meant that the young and beautiful daughters would never get a chance to get married. The conservative society would boycott them as they have broken one of the fundamental tenets of their religion. But look at the quirkiness - the war which brought them to the streets, also gave them the resolve to fight. Thanks to that change, you can find many Afghan girls enrolled in schools or even working in a corporate office. They had the disposable income to stand on their feet. They may not be married, but they live with dignity! You can even see widows ferrying SIM cards on the streets of Kabul. Telecom has surely revolutionised the lives of Afghan women.
That was then. Now with falling tariff and flooding of the market by cheap Chinese handsets, many are able to afford the mobile phones. Naturally, the PCO business is shrinking, and shrinking at a faster rate than what one could think of. We needed to innovate. Thus was born the Virtual PCO.
Virtual PCO enabled a PCO owner to have multiple virtual MSISDNs (mobile numbers) from one handset. So in effect, a PCO owner can distribute MSISDNs to multiple families who need not own a mobile connection. Just a handset can allow them to connect to the world outside! It is a win-win situation. It delivered few critical benefits:
- It provided the PCO owner with a new revenue stream. A lifeline for a fast losing business.
- It did away with the pain of the PCO business - where the user had to walk up to the nearest PCO kiosk to use the service. This service brought the service to the doorstep! It also diminished the chances of losing a life or a limb in a war-torn society!
- For the customer, it meant that even without owning a mobile phone and a connection, he/she can make or receive calls from their home. Again, this product allowed the customers to decide when to use the service! It also conformed to the social norms!
- Lastly, Virtual PCO allowed the customers to receive calls!
Needless to say, this product will redefine the market once again. And not only in Afghanistan, but across Africa & Latin America, where there are many millions who still cannot afford a mobile phone. For the PCO owner, its a windfall. He can make money through
- Handset rental
- Incoming call charges or a monthly rental for receiving calls
- Outgoing call charges (as was earlier)
I strongly believe that this product will become a roaring success in the next few years, till the cycle turns on its head again! But we will be ready to innovate once again.
This brings me back to India. What will happen to the PCO business in India? The Afghanistan model will not work in India. India is far too telecom-developed for that solution. But I see a new trend emerging out of the 3G networks.
It will take years for 3G handsets to capture a sizeable market share. Which means, the middle-of-the-pyramid and bottom-of-the-pyramid subscribers will not be able to afford 3G services in the near future. Even the cost of the 3G services will be a factor. This does not necessarily mean that these subscribers would not want to use the 3G services! As I mentioned in my previous article, even the poor has aspirations!
I see PCO booths in India turning into mass video-calling centres. It will become Skype of the mobile industry! Imagine a mother from interior Kodungallur in Kerala whose son works in the Gulf! She is too ill-equipped to handle a 3G phone. But let her walk to the nearest PCO...and she will be thrilled to video-call her son! It is debatable at this stage whether the virtual model will work here in India.....only time will tell. I remember way back in the nineties, when I was working with BPL Mobile, we test marketed a product in which the users could use the text message facility on a virtual mass-market level. It was based on a subscription model. Though the response was good, the prohibitive cost of the SMS was a dampener. But the scenario has changed and India possibly will give a new definition to video-calling feature. Who knows how many more innovative ideas will be born in the coming years!
Though the pang of never realising my dream of flying still pricks me now & then, I am a happy man marketing mobilephones. The experiences have been life-defining. I can say these experiences have helped me in becoming a better human being. At the end, that is what matters most!
Well written pieces both… Coming to the innovative streak in the human spirit, they don’t say “necessity is the mother of all inventions” for nothing – and that holds true from Afganistan to Zanzibar!! I would like to narrate something interesting here – we, as in my Dad, used to own a couple of fishing vessels and I still recall the days when there was this harbour in Cochin, they used to dock after days of fishing and auction their catch, haggling for hours on end. Gone are those days….. now, as soon as the vessels dock, the catch is cleared out by the buyer in about 15 minutes.. howdy? The auction was completed via mobile phone (thanks to the loudspeakers!!) when the vessel was still 3 nautical miles off the coast!! On the lighter side, I am yet to figure out what innovation could possibly wean my Mom away from her beloved landline, though she has the facility at home, to video chat with her son working in the Gulf!! Sorry for belly-riding on your blog buddy!!
ReplyDeletematt, will write a post on how BPL Mobile started the mobile auctioning way back in 1999! very interesting story.
ReplyDeleteNow I am thinking on system that will facilitate callers to generate oversease calls from 3g to 2g. A dialer will be hanging on a web site. Visitors will come and make calls to cell numbers to their home country with a cheaper rate.
ReplyDeleteNow I am thinking on system that will facilitate callers to generate oversease calls from 3g to 2g. A dialer will be hanging on a web site. Visitors will come and make calls to cell numbers to their home country with a cheaper rate.
ReplyDelete