Most mobiles…

Click over to LIRNEasia to read about the proposed (and, it seems, now delayed) law in Sri Lanka to a) require a proof-of-SIM-ownership certificate to be carried along with one’s mobile and b) to prohibit the sharing of mobile phones. This is a level of regulation of individual behaviors which would go far beyond common requirements to register SIMs at the time of sale.  

There are issues of national security under discussion here (urgent ones, given the conflict on the island), but at LIRNEasia points out, this law would be especially onerous for lower-income users, among whom mobile sharing is quite common.  

Why bother with a toll-free number?  Just tell prospective customers to “give a missed call”. Everyone knows that means you will call them back (and thus pay for the phone call).

Thanks to Rikin Gandhi for spotting this sign –a bit of evidence of the ubiquity of missed calls as part of the accepted communications repertoire in India.

If any readers have seen similar signs elsewhere, please let me know.

So this news is a month old, but it is still interesting.

MIT’s X out TB program has gotten some attention lately. Check out MobileActive’s interview with some of the team members for details.

The program, piloted in Nicaragua, encourages daily compliance with the (very strict, very lengthy, very important) anti-TB medication regimen in a cost-effective and very innovative way.  Patients must urinate on a reactive strip every day. If the patient has taken the TB medication, the strip will change to reveal a code.  By sending that code via SMS to their health care providers, he or she can prove that they have taken the medication, without requiring a daily visit from a health care worker.

That’s cool enough already.  But then, to get at the behavioral part of the puzzle, the X out TB program offers cell phone minutes as rewards for patients who have successfully communicated with the health care center on say, 25 of 30 days in a month.

I tagged this post as m-health and m-banking because this is an example of a situation in which the easy and cost-free transfer of minutes/airtime/load is actually a better solution than m-banking funds delimited in actual currencies. This is a good cause and a specialized case, so operators can be approached to provide the minutes at a reduced rate, or even for free.  I’m sure a whole host of regulatory and accounting issues would prevent them from doing this with m-banking funds.

Also interesting – the MobileActive piece points to the ubiquity of cell phone minutes as something of value to participants.

The team also changed the incentives for the project. Initially, they had intended to give people who stuck with their treatment a microfinance loans. “The whole goal with microfinance is you get a peer system from your family,” said Gomez-Marquez. “But when we went to Nicaragua they really insisted on cell phone minutes.” The minutes can either be uploaded to the user’s phone or the team can pass out pre-paid phone cards.