An AP story for a new project I’m involved with to get cell phones into the hands of people who need them, an innovative new program from Tracfone Wireless:

By LUCAS L. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer (August 18, 2008)

A cell phone company is offering free wireless phones and 68 minutes of free air time to more than 800,000 low-income Tennessee residents in a program aimed at ensuring they can make a call in an emergency.

Prepaid cell phone provider TracFone Wireless Inc. announced Friday that it’s launching its SafeLink Wireless program in Tennessee, which officials said would become the first state to have widespread, free emergency wireless service for poor people.

SafeLink provides eligible low-income households with a cell phone, access to 911 emergency services and 68 minutes of free air time for up to a year before customers If customers run through their 68 minutes, they can still call 911 (which is a free call) and they can purchase additional minutes for other calls at a discounted rate, said Jose Fuentes, director of government relations for Tracfone Wireless. The cell phone’s standard features include voicemail, text capability, call waiting, international calling to over 60 destination and caller ID.

John Taylor, a spokesman for Sprint Nextel Corp., one of the nation’s top three carriers, disputed Fuentes’ claim of sparse advertisement. He said Sprint participates in the Lifeline program by offering a discount on services and advertises on its Web site and through print, such as mailings. According to the FCC, 21 million households across the country qualify for Lifeline. “I’m elated that this program is providing needy families with access to basic cell phone service,” said Democratic House Speaker Pro Tem Lois DeBerry of Memphis, which has the state’s highest low-income population.

Fuentes said families may qualify if their household income is not above 135 percent of the federal poverty level, and if they receive assistance through government programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.

Nicholas P. Sullivan, a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently released a study (”Phoning in a Major Econmic Boost”) analyzing the impact of mobile phones on low-income households. He said the troubled economy makes the phones even more of an asset.

Tennessee Safety Commissioner Dave Mitchell agrees a cell phone is a valuable safety tool, especially when someone is traveling. “This program will allow drivers to call 911 if they encounter an emergency or get stranded while on the road,” he said. “I am thrilled that Tennessee is the first state in the country to offer this program and help keep our citizens safe.”

That cellphones are full-fledged computers useful for a lot more than basic communications is well known, but actual, practical applications are just coming online. To date, most have been in the transfer of market information (CellBazaar) and money (M-PESA), with a host of trials in the medical arena. But getting doctors to use new technology isn’t always easy–unless it fits right into what they are used to doing.

ClickDiagnostics, a new company spawned at MIT (and winner of the MIT Enterprise Forum’s $100K competition in the “development” field), may have accomplished that. The idea is to use cell phones in the field, particularly remote rural areas, to take pictures of people’s eyes and skin, then transmit those images to doctors for diagnosis of cataracts and skin cancer. In an initial test last winter students travelled to Bangladesh to shoot images, then tested their quality with doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital (aka MGH, aka “man’s greatest hospital”) in Boston. The doctors said they were of high enough quality to make an initial diagnosis and prescribe a treatment regimen–or point to the need for immediate hospital-related care.

In addition to the common skin disease prevalent in all developing countries, these simple cell phone images can detect the onset of HIV, Malaria, Hepatitis C, and TB. To the extent the product can be deployed in the field, it could have a huge impact on the early recognition and treatment of these debilitating and potentially deadly diseases.

With the MIT prize and some seed funding under its belt, ClickDiagnostics has its first contract to provide service in Egpyt, starting this fall.

Last spring I completed an in-depth research report on the role cell phones in helping Americans get work and make money. Released by the independent New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) think tank, Cell Phones Provide Significant Economic Gains for Low-Income American Households concludes that providing cell phones to the 38 percent of America’s 45 million poorest households now without them — including millions of seniors, Hispanics, African-Americans and rural residents — could help them get work or make money worth $2.9 billion-$11 billion. The study is based on two surveys: a scientific poll by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) of 1,005 Americans and a statistically large online sampling of 110,000 prepaid cellphone users (provided by Tracfone). The study is the first in the U.S. to zero in on potential economic and public safety benefits to those in the bottom two quintiles of household income (less than $35,000), who are much less likely to own cell phones. Those who do not now own a cell phone tend to be older (37 percent are retired), less educated (29 percent have a high school education or less), low income (38 percent make less than $35,000 a year) or unemployed (30 percent).

The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a long story on a Nokia “user anthropologist” who tours the world trying to learn more about how people use phones and how they would alter the design to suit their needs. See Can the Cellphone Help End Poverty? by Sara Corbett.

Nokia said recently it had seen no evidence that the global economic downturn was affecting demand for mobile phones in emerging markets, as it outlined plans for new handsets for developing countries, as reported in the Financial Times.

Alex Lambeek, a Nokia vice-president responsible for the Finnish company’s strategy in emerging markets, said 2008 should be the first year in which the number of handsets sold in developing countries to customers replacing their existing mobiles would surpass those to first-time buyers–particularly in India, China and Indonesia.

Asked whether Nokia had seen any evidence of slowing demand in emerging markets because of the economic downturn, Mr Lambeek told the Financial Times: “The simple answer is no. We see a very strong underlying trend of mobility taking root in emerging markets, and the growth drivers for that are still very much in place.”

Mr Lambeek said Nokia was looking at how to tailor its services strategy for emerging markets, and highlighted Wednesday’s announcement that it is linking with Webmail International, a South African telecoms company, to provide email services on its mobiles in the country. He added that Nokia was interested in developing mobile banking services for emerging markets, as well as informamtion services to aid productivity in industries such as agriculture.

Nokia’s emergence as the dominant player in developing markets comes at a time when Motorola’s handset business is ailing, and has been split off from Motorola’s other operations.

In talking about the economic impact of cell phones in the developing world, I often get asked about the impact of cell phones in the U.S. Nothing’s been written on it. So I dug into the topic and with the help of pollster Opinion Research Corp., which conducted a scientific random sampling of 1005 adults, and another Web survey of 110,000 Tracfone prepaid customers, I assembled some good data.

My conclusion? That Americans with household incomes less than $35,000 attribute $4.5 billion in income to their cell phones each year. And that if the 38% of these households that do not now have cell phones were to acquire them and earn money at the same rate, it would add $2.9 to $11 billion to income for these bottom two quintiles.

You can read the press release and paper (”Cell Phones Provide Significant Income Gains for Low Income Americans”), which is posted and hosted by the New Millenium Research Council.

I just got a copy of the Japanese edition of You Can Hear Me Now, which has been out since July 2007, and it looks great. A nice cobalt blue cover. Take a look at Amazon Japan. There are lots of reviews there, but of course I can’t read them. If anyone else can, let me know what they say!

Japan’s Marubeni, a huge trading company, was one of the intitial investors in GrameenPhone and the Japanese have a strong tradition of supporting development in South Asia.

(Many thanks to Batman Jim for lugging it back in his suitcase.)

CellBazaar, a kind of “Craig’s list for cell phones” that is available only on GrameenPhone in Bangladesh, won the Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development Award at the GSM Association’s blowout meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Here’s the citation:

“Grameenphone CellBazaar is a user-generated virtual marketplace, accessible via mobile phone or PC to nearly 17 million people in Bangladesh. In developing countries, limited communications hinder commerce and uninformed farmers and traders have little bargaining power with exploitative middlemen. Using CellBazaar, buyers and sellers trade basic goods from their mobiles, bringing the benefits of information exchange and one-to-many trading to a previously unwired rural population. Users post or search an item, spending less than US$.02, either by SMS or WAP or WEB, depending on their preferences. While common telephony establishes one-to-one communication, CellBazaar links many-to-many using the same basic mobile infrastructures.”

Judges’ comments: “Great initiative - full marks for self-sustainability. This grass root level initiative is not only for operators to make money but for rural folks to sell and trade their goods and increased price transparency and help for the illiterate is also available. It has clear environmental benefits through reduced travel.”

CellBazaar was founded by Kamal Quadir, brother of Iqbal Quadir, one of the founders of GrameenPhone. The company was initially developed by Quadir when he was a student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and was a prize winner at MIT’s annual $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

See the proud press release on Telenor’s web site.

Not along ago, India’s Tata Motors introduced the Tata Nano, a car that sells for rougly $2,500 USD. Now, another India’s Spice Telecom has introduced a people’s phone selling for roughly $20. It lacks a screen and other bells and whistles, but is aimed at the “next billion” owners of cell phones in the developing world.

At the end of the year I was interviewed by Leonard Lopate, noted book maven, on New York’s WNYC (20 minutes).

Underreported: Cellphones in the Global Economy