Is there a market for mobile telephony in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on the planet? According to Ole B. Sjulstad, Vice-President of Telenor International Mobile, who participated at the conference, there is. Because, whatever their circumstances, "people need to communicate".

In any attempt to sell a mobile phone service in the Third World, the first obstacle to be overcome is the fact that more than 90% of the population lack financial resources. Telenor tackled this obstacle by forming an alliance with the micro credit organization Grameen Bank. Together, they created GrameenPhone, which offers mobile phone minutes to the most disadvantaged throughout Bangladesh on the basis of small loans. The GrameenPhone business has created numerous skilled jobs, which help to consolidate a Bengali middle class and, in turn, generate new business.

The results speak for themselves: although it took Telenor four years –from 1997 to 2003– to reach its first one million customers in Bangladesh, it took only one more year (2004) to reach two million. Already by the first quarter of 2005, the figure was more than three million, and by August, four million.

The Vice-President of Telenor draws his own lessons from the success of GrameenPhone: make sure you are the majority shareholder; always maintain good relations with partners, the government, and society at large; understand the particularities of the region; take local management models into account; don’t forget that things take time (don't give up halfway); and, lastly, be aware that laws and regulations in a market such as the Bengali market can change overnight.

According to Christian Seelos, "This model is founded on a symbiosis between the resources of a non-profit and the structures of a commercial operator".