Mobile Service Affordability for the Needy, Addiction, and ICT Policy Implications

This paper links communications and media usage to social and household economics boundaries. It highlights that in present day society, communications and media are a necessity, but not always affordable, and that they furthermore open up for addictive behaviours which raise additional financial and social risks. A simple and efficient methodology compatible with state-of-the-art social and communications business statistics is developed, which produces the residual communications and media affordability budget and ultimately the value-at-risk in terms of usage and tariffs. Sensitivity analysis provides precious information on communications and media adoption on the basis of affordability. Case data are surveyed from various countries. ICT policy recommendations are made to support widespread and responsible communications access.