A new report, Perceived economic benefits of telecom access at the Bottom of the Pyramid in emerging Asia, takes a new look at the effect of mobile phones on the lives of people at the so-called ‘bottom of the pyramid.’

The report, published by LIRNEasia, states that although anecdotal evidence shows that mobile phones are economically beneficial to base-of-the-pyramid users, there is little empirical evidence to reinforce this claim.

The authors conducted a study on mobile phone usage in five Asian countries and used the results to analyze the benefits — economic and otherwise — of mobiles on users at the bottom of the pyramid.

- Read synthesis on MobileActive
- Read report

If this topic interests you, be aware that LIRNEasia has many other projects and papers, including research on Teleuse at the Bottom of the Pyramid and Mobile2.0@BOP.