Dear Mobile Network Provider

I have a dream – that anywhere throughout the 3^rd world, anyone with a mobile phone will be able to place an unlimited number of advertisements without any charge, and (almost!) without any vetting process or delay, by using simple SMS/text. Similarly, the same person can make an unlimited number of searches through the advertisement system, using simple SMS/text.

This one system will work for local, national, regional or international adverts.

As well as enabling people to buy and sell personal possessions, it will greatly help people in the informal and SME sectors, so sell their produce, goods and services, and to buy inputs.

It will service small communities which conventionally have been too small to be served by a newspaper or similar advertising system.

The system will not be totally free – the initial outgoing SMS to place the advert or to request the search will be charged at a normal rate for domestic or international SMS. But the response sms (if there is one) will ideally be absorbed by the System, and will not be charged to the advertiser or searcher.

The system will also have a PC and smartphone interface. Until maybe 2013 we can expect that the majority of phones in poor 3^rd world countries will be only basic phones with voice and sms capability. After that we can hope and expect that even the cheapest of phones have inbuilt web browsing capability – then the advertising system will still be valid, but the interface will have changed, and indeed much more information will be available to searchers for the same or even less cost. (If my dates are wrong here, then maybe we scrap the idea for SMS-driven Interactive Data Services and just concentrate on the smartphone and PC interface).

What is required to make this dream come true?

1. A mobile network provider who sets up a local, regional and/or international sms gateway which operates free of charge – it takes incoming sms’s and converts them to internet email, which is relayed through the internet to an Interactive Data Service Provider (IDSP). This MNP also routes back free of charge maximum one response sms per incoming sms. Where the incoming sms originates in the MNP’s own network, then of course the MNP makes revenue. Where it originates in someone else’s network, in some cases the MNP will make some revenue, depending on commercial arrangements. Probably the overall operation will have to be cross-subsidized by the MNP’s voice and other data services, and/or by the MNP’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Division.

2. It also requires one or several IDSP’s – who are effectively email, database and application operators – who receive and process incoming advertisement placements and who process incoming search requests and give response where appropriate. This or these IDSP’s may in fact be the SMS-Gateway-MNP themselves, or they may be independent operators. Since they are effectively making zero revenue (but for very small costs), then they may be funded by Aid and Development Donors, NGO’s, philanthropic foundations etc.. Alternatively, they may be funded by sponsorship – with a very small brand message in the reponse sms (and of course by Google-type adsense-type advertising on the PC/smartphone interfaces).

Who will publicise this system / these systems? The MNP itself may do so, either with specific advertising or as part of its general advertising. Donors and NGO’s and other commercial and industrial promotion organisations should help to spread the word, also Microfinance organisations. Also of course anything which is effectively for free usually gets a lot of word-of-mouth transmission.

What is the probable scale and/or cost of such a system(s)?

An average small and poor 3^rd world country of 10 million people could generate easily 1,000 adverts per day and probably 20,000 searches per day. Therefore a third world of 3 billion people could generate 300,000 adverts per day and 6 million searches per day, i.e. 7 million incoming and 7 million outgoing SMS’s per day. At a cost of US$ 0.003 per sms converted, that becomes US$ 42,000 per day or US$ 14 million per year operational cost for the SMS gateway (I have no hard idea of the actual cost per sms and per sms conversion – you will have a better idea of that). Note that these figures apply to a mature model, when people from all countries of the 3^rd world have discovered the system and have started to use it – this should take maybe 3 years to reach such a phase.

What are the benefits of such a system?

It brings advertising and other interactive data services to the reach of everyone – including people whose best advertising had been a notice nailed to a tree at a traffic intersection. The low cost of this advertising should create a big boost in the volume of advertising. That in turn should stimulate trade and production, and help to build economies in poor regions of the world. Compared with the cost-benefit ratio of the average aid and development project, this scheme should be 1000 or even 1000,000 times more effective and more efficient.

Why has nobody else done it?

A lack of imagination – people think about small systems in small locales. And the other side of the coin is that people insist on making money from such systems – something which can kill this kind of thing stone dead. The beauty of this scheme is that one MNP globally and one IDSP globally can create a system which can be used by every small community but which can also link every small community globally for some goods (if not for services). In fact, this is a socialistic type of project but which is designed to stimulate the market and to stimulate capitalist endeavour. Note that in the world of the World Bank, everything must be privatised and everything must make a profit or at least break even. There have been a few experiments I believe with free advertising newspapers for the stimulation of small business in the third world, but not yet I think in the electronic sphere.

Do I have any experience or track-record with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Projects?

Yes – since about 2002 I have run the project cd3wd.com, which provides free of charge high quality technical development information for the 3^rd world, in both online and offline mode. Find this at http://www.cd3wd.com/CD3WD/ . Moreover I live in the third World (Zimbabwe) so I see and feel the potential for such systems to operate and prosper...

Yours sincerely

Mr Alex Weir