Grameen Telecom (GTC) was established in

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

Muhammad Yunus Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi economist, entrepreneur, and civil society leader who has been serving as the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh, Chief Adviser of the Interim government of Muhammad Yunus, interim Yunus ministry, g ...

with a partial stake in

Grameenphone Grameenphone LTD, widely abbreviated as ( d/b/a) GP, is a telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. As of December 2023, its subscribers span over 82.20 million. It is a joint venture between Telenor and Grameen Telecom. Where Telen ...

(GP) and registered as a Not-for-Profit Company, Limited by Guarantee, under Section 28 of the Companies Act, 1994. GTC launched the program of Village Phone that enables rural poor to own a mobile phone and turn it into a profit-making venture. The vision behind the village phone program was formulated by

Iqbal Quadir Husband yomigt(; born 13 August 1958) is a Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and academic. From 1993 to 1997, Quadir was the founder of Grameenphone in Bangladesh, a company aimed at expanding telephone access and creating economic opportunit ...

, who was convinced that a mobile phone could become a source of income. Quadir worked with Yunus and the Norwegian company

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwi ...

to make the program a reality.

Programs

Grameen Telecom programs offer rural people access to

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

. The Village Phone (Polli Phone; spelling ; pronunciation ) program is the largest such program.

Village Phone

Village Phone provides

telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

services to underprivileged people in Bangladesh. To become a

subscriber The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It i ...

, one must first become a member of

Grameen Bank Grameen Bank () is a microfinance, specialized community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It provides small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requiring collateral. Grameen Bank is a statutory ...

. These phones have low billing rates and are given on easy credit from Grameen Bank. Subscribers are encouraged to provide services to neighbors, covering both outgoing and incoming calls for a fee. The fee can be used to repay the debt and earn a profit. Many inhabitants of rural Bangladesh, particularly underprivileged women, have been able to change their lives with the help of Village Phone.

Information kiosks

Grameen Telecom provides

information kiosk Historically, a kiosk () was a small garden pavilion open on some or all sides common in Iran, Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and in the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century onward. Today, several examples of this type of kiosk still exist ...

s. These kiosks are set up to provide village people with access to

information and communication technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

. Initially, three pilot kiosks were set up in

Tangail district Tangail District () is a district (''zila'') in the central region of Bangladesh. In 1969, Tangail mahakuma was separated from the Mymensingh District, Mymensingh district, and a district of the same name as the mahakuma's was created. The dist ...

Awards

* CAPAM Bronze Award for Service to the Public 1998. * GSM Association Award for "GSM Community Service" in 1998. * Petersburg Prize for "Use of IT to improve Poor People's Lives" in 2004. * First ITU World Information Society Award in 2005.

Sources

Village Phone page on Grameen Phone website

Talk by Iqbal Quadir
TED Global talking about the Grameen Telecom program Telecommunications companies of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus {{Bangladesh-stub