Village Phone – Business in a Box: A Modified Approach
The statistics of the number of people on this earth that still have no reliable communications are staggering. And while there is little real chance of miles and miles of copper wire being strung far distances to small villages, mobile phone technology can span those distances instantly.
The Village Phone concept and idea is well proven and documented. In conjunction with an in-country microlender, a single person can become a telecommunications provider for their village. Business plan numbers indicate that a local population of at least 100 is needed to support the Serengeti franchise.
The concept is relatively simple, a person invests in a mobile phone, earpiece, SIM card, possibly an external antenna, a phone recharging solution if necessary and marketing signage. The current concept requires a new village entrepreneur to purchase a the business in a box in advance.
The new village telecommunication executive purchases prepaid minutes for their phone and then resells phone access by the minute, marking up the cost per call to earn income above the cost of the call. Additional amounts can be charged to deliver phone messages left for villagers as well.
Here is my modified idea, working with an in-country aid agency or NGO an entrepreneur in a major first world country could start a business of providing village phone businesses in a box that would assist a local in-country non-profit aid group to raise funds to support their work and help a villager to get started with their new business.
With so many mobile telephones being tossed away, there is no reason why they could not be gathered as donations to give to villagers to help start their own business. Some of the most recent technology mobile phones could be immediately resold through an outlet like Second Rotation to raise funds to pay for the cost of the external antenna, currently sourced through Skymasts. The advantage of selling the phones through Second Rotation is that there is no upfront cost to sell the phones since Second Rotation even pays the postage for sending the phone to them once they purchase it from you.
The village phone business in the box can be assembled by a small business in the first world country and those kits could be sent to the partner NGO in-country that can resell them to villagers that want to start their own business and the NGO can keep all the funds from that sale to support the local NGO activities. The first country assembler of these kits could be the distributor of prepaid minutes to the new village phone businesses and make a commission from reselling prepaid cards to the end phone provider. These minutes can be sold through the NGO to the end user phone service provider in the village and a percentage of the commission from the sale of the prepaid phone minute cards can be shared with the local NGO to help continue their operations as well.
We are fortunate that Grameen Foundation has provided a Village Phone business outline to show the current model works without modification. That outline is attached here Village Phone Business Outline.
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This idea was generously donated by Steve. As a thank you for the donation of the business idea this site and the Myvesta Foundation have helped to fund the business of entrepreneur Judith Prettel Rengifo.
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