Providing Wireless In the World's Most Dangerous and Remote Places

grcumb writes "The Economist magazine is running a brief profile of Digicel, a 'minnow' in the wireless telecoms market that has distinguished itself by setting up shop in some of the most unlikely (and dangerous) markets in the world, including Haiti and Papua New Guinea, whose capital, Port Moresby, has one of the highest murder rates in the world."

Comments

Telecoms is supply-driven

[grcumb]

Original submitter here.

The point I find most interesting in all this is that Digicel succeeds by defying conventional wisdom about supply and demand. They simply create supply and trust local demand to rise. Here's the second paragraph of the original submission:

"If you just focus on risk, you can't do a thing," said Digicel's billionaire president Denis O'Brien in a 2008 Forbes profile. But O'Brien's small-market revolution should teach us another lesson, too: Traditional economic analysis doesn't work when it comes to communications. Telecommunications is a supply-driven economy. If you build it — no matter where you build it — they will come.