Mobile operators say budget customers at the so-called 'bottom of the pyramid' went for voice mobile because it gave them utility and saved bigger expenses such as transport costs incurred to meet people.
Hans Wijayasuriya, who heads Dialog Telecom, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, says the same principle can be applied to broadband.
Utility
Instead of visiting a library, a student might get some information through the internet substituting broadband for transportation.
"The applicability to that consumer is in terms of utility," he told a regional telecom conference in Colombo earlier this year.
Broadband services for internet service could be valuable for people by saving time such as the need for visiting a library when such needs can be accessed via the internet. Broadband would then substitute for transportation.
"We