The Economist describes how Indian mobile operators innovated their way to the world’s cheapest services.
Outsourcing network management, ‘lifetime’ prepaid schemes, ‘micro-call-centers’, ‘green’ technologies for base stations, and my favourite – infrastructure sharing, where two or more operators agree to share their network towers in an area just before going at each others’ throats to grab subscriber share:
Network-sharing is not new, says Mr Colao, “but the confidence to do it at scale, and with a fierce competitor, came from India. Once you see how it works in that kind of environment, you become much more confident that you can do it in Barcelona or Venice.”
The Economist’s lucid style makes this a must-read.