In late 2007, Reuters reported that “worldwide mobile telephone subscriptions reached 3.3 billion.” This fact has generated a lot of discussion here at the Church on its implications about how cell phones could be used to keep members and church leaders connected and otherwise further the work of the Lord. Particularly intriguing to the Church is that in many developing countries with little landline telephone infrastructure, mobile phone usage has grown rapidly. The scene like that in the picture below are common: folks that may not even have electricity in the home, often have cell phone service.
On the surface, it certainly appears like a golden opportunity to use cell phone technology to reach audiences the Church otherwise could not. As an analyst, though, my nature is to approach the subject more cautiously and do a little more digging before I jump to such a conclusion. Here’s what my investigation has revealed:
You can’t say that half the world has a cell phone. There are about 6 billion people on the earth, so you might think 3 billion cell phones means 50% of people have cell phones, but this is not the case. The 3.3 billion figure does not take into account people with multiple mobile phones, so the actual number of mobile phone users is less than that. Hong Kong and much of Europe has mobile penetration of around 150%, meaning 1.5 mobile phones per person, on average across those populations. The Reuters report above further states that “59 countries have mobile penetration of over 100 percent.”
Mobile phone access does not equal mobile Internet access. The US has one of the highest rates of mobile Internet access, yet even here the Pew Research center says that only about three fourths of mobile phone users have mobile internet access. Worldwide the percentage of cell phone users with Internet access is much lower. Some estimates put it around 800 million, or 25%, of cell phones worldwide have Internet access. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone)
Not all mobile Internet access is a broadband mobile connection. Earlier this year, the GSM Association reported estimates of only 32 million broadband mobile connections worldwide, though it’s increasing at a very fast pace. This means that only a very small fraction, about 10%, of mobile users worldwide have broadband Internet on their phone. This does not prohibit slow-connection mobile Internet users from accessing content on their phones, but studies show much higher usage with broadband mobile connections.
What all this means for the Church’s use of mobile networks to further the Lord’s work is yet to be determined. On the surface, an aggressive mobile strategy seems like a no-brainer, but digging into the analysis reveals a very different story. What do you think the Church’s mobile strategy should be? What direction is your company headed with regard to mobile?
A first step is for the church to have membership software that lists separate phone numbers for each person in the household. Perhaps 25% of the families in our ward are cell-phone only, but there is only a spot for one phone, generally the husband’s.
They get annoyed when we try to reach the wife. But there is no place official to record that other phone number.
It just isn’t working, and it makes the church appear sexist.
Even if there is not widespread mobile internet access, text-messaging could be leveraged.
Last year I wrote a website on contract that accepted message from mobile phones that are capable of texting to email addresses (most can these days) and then parsed incoming texts and redistributed the text content to those who had subscribed to the texting group. Unfortunately the funding ran out and the company shut down just last week.
However, there were a number of members of the church using it for quick coordination and announcements to quorum members or youth groups.
Basically the group owner would say to his group, “Pull out your cell phone and send a text message to mygroup@servicename.com and you will be instantly subscribed to my texting group.” Then, whenever he needed to quickly get a message out to the group, like “A new family is moving in at the Doe’s old place. Come help at 8:00pm” He just sent a single text to the group email address, and everyone who had subscribed would get a copy.
I think that this kind of use of texting could really be leveraged, even if the mobile phones don’t have internet.
Perhaps the basic communication tools in the unit websites could allow users to enter their own cell phone number and select a carrier, in addition to a personal email address. Then they could have the option of saying, send me quorum announcements by text.
I know that my quorum would use it in a heartbeat.
I think a good start would be if the Church actually let us use the super locked down Internet access that pops up on my iPhone everytime I am in the chapel.
That way we could actually use our mobile phones and laptops in our lessons each Sunday.
I have noted with much interest the growth of mobile phone use worldwide over the last couple of years. As the Church considers the course it should take in developing internet content for mobile phones, it would seem that one other factor besides the actual current internet penetration into the world population should be addressed. That is, the rapid rate of increase or momentum of that penetration. Ten percent may be the current user involvement, yet that percentage is growing rapidly. What the Church prepares for today for mobile phone use will likely reach a much higher percentage of the world within just two to five years.
Mobile access to lds.org would certainly be a plus for Church members. But consider the potential missionary influence. Perhaps with increased member involvement, more and more non-member friends would and could access a mobile version of mormon.org the very moment they hear about it. Think what kind of impact that could have for members inviting neighbors to learn about the Church.
Shouldn’t the Church be actively preparing now to take advantage of what is probably the fastest growing worldwide internet access?
One thing missing from this discussion is the pricing structure of mobile phones in emerging nations.
Do they have “free night and weekends”? How about “unlimited texting”? Minor things like that will have a huge impact on how the technology is used. We need to follow the “affordable” trends in those countries.
The pricing plans is something I have thought about, especially in emerging nations, but I lack the data to talk about it in much specificity. This I do know, that though cell phones are growing rapidly in Africa, the vast majority of it is pre-paid service. I would suspect that prepaid is expensive and people would only use it for necessities; casual Church use would probably be out of the question.
i actually am on my phone now on the internet and i would love a mobile version of lds.org. i use the scriptures at church. the main page is horrible though. i would like to use it for quick reference.