We are told that we live in the ‘digital revolution’ era and that we can communicate across the globe as we never could before. In fact, restrictive copyright laws still act as a serious barrier to sharing and learning from each other. This is particularly true in countries of the South where three quarters of the population live.

To read more, get a copy of the 208-page Copy/South Dossier produced in May 2006 by the Copy South Research Group after more than 18 months of research. Available at no charge, this unique dossier contains more than 50 articles examining many dimensions of the issue across the global South, such as access, culture, economics, libraries, education, software, the Internet, the public domain, and resistance. It is available at no charge.

As part of the research project "Mobile Opportunities: Poverty and Telephony Access in Latin America and the Caribbean", DIRSI presents its background papers.

Our background research has identified the importance of mobile access to the poor, its process of growth as well as a series of regulatory and market barriers for increased mobile telephony access and use by the poor. Yet empirical studies of the social and economic implications of mobile use in the region based on demand analysis are rare.

The main goal of this research project is to understand the strategies employed by the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean to access and use mobile telephony services, and identify the major market and regulatory barriers to increased penetration and usage as well as business opportunities for the "bottom of the pyramid" users. We also seek to understand how mobile telephony access contributes to social and economic development- what we call mobile opportunities. A set of recommendations for policymakers and key stakeholders to help remove major access barriers, including identification of best-practice solutions to delivering mobile services to the "bottom of the pyramid" users, is a key project deliverable.