GSM Asia Pacific

The last 10 years in the mobile industry, even in Afghanistan, has been easy. Getting the first 50% is easy. The real challenge for markets and much of our region is how do we get to the remaining 50%. How do we get to that last 3 billion and get regulatory frameworks that help.

Universal service funds are criminal in that $6 billion dollars has been collected that’s not being diverse. From a personal perspective, we’ve paid in and nothing has been disbursed. I don’t see why operators should continue to pay. We would be very happy as an operator to withhold funds for investment in rural areas. Are we going to be aggressive enough to do anything about it collectively? I think not, but it would be good.

One thing taxation can do is create fiscal incentives for investment in rural areas. Revenues generated from shared infrastructure should be subject to less of a tax burden, etc. In Afghanistan I think 20% of domestically generated revenue comes from the telecom sector. The problem is that politicians don’t have 10 or a 4 year view. It’s one thing to say in three or four years time you’ll see more revenue, but a politician isn’t going to see or understand that.

Two more broad points, ownership. In Afghanistan we have delegates coming from rural communities telling us to come in and provide networks. You look at the Grameen experience of lending to people, can we give ownership of networks in those communities. We could look at community financing and ownership of networks.

In Afghanistan we introduced mobile banking three or four months ago, and the Central Bank told us to go ahead and keep them informed as they didn’t have the capacity to immediately implement legislation.