Abstract |
This paper examines the socio-economy of mobile phone ownership in India by plotting patterns that have been drawn from National Sample Survey (NSS) 66th round consumption data for 2009–2010. While we use the secondary data from Census 2011 and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the crux of this paper is built around the NSS data, juxtaposing mobile ownership with place of residence, social category, religion, having Internet connection, educational attainment, age, and the state. Moreover, we regress owning mobile phone on the socio-economic characteristics to plot the determinants of mobile phone ownership. The assumption that permeates throughout the paper is that mobile phone is a network good with the convergent technology embedded in it and generates multiple streams of pay-offs and spillovers |