Importance of Mobile Government Systems

Published Date: 02 Mar 2018

Introduction

Civilization can only be consisted of civilized people, with an organization governing it with all the public services. This organization is known as government. Government in modern days has to face more challenge than any other organization to perform its tasks and meet the goals. The more technologies are being discovered, the more citizen needs are created. ICT provides the governments with the ways of meeting the ever growing needs of the citizens. In developed countries, Internet Technologies have already become an easily available service to the citizens while the rest of the world still keeps on hoping for it. The developing and under-developed countries, as an example Bangladesh is legging well behind to catch the pace of the ever developing technologies and the benefits which the citizens of developed countries are enjoying.

Basically when government activities take place by digital processes over a computer network, usually the internet between government and the members of public and regulated entities of private sector, then it is called e-government. And m-government would be an extension of e-government to mobile platforms, as well as the strategic use of government services and applications which are possible using the mobile phones, laptops, PDA's and other wireless technologies.

M-government concept normally helps make public information and government services available "anytime, anywhere" (Emmanuel Lallana, 2008) and that the ubiquity of these devices mandates their employment in government functions, simply as an example of the usage of mobile wireless technologies could be the sending of mass alerts to registered citizens via short messaging services (SMS) in case of a national emergency.

Though m-government is at its early age, it seems to have a substantial influence on the generation of a set of complex strategies and tools for e-government efforts and on their roles and functions. It is quite clear after the studies that the number of people having access to mobile phones, PDA and wireless internet connections is increasing rapidly. M-government is already a manifold concept as being mobile or simply being capable of having the mobility options is generally associated with a positive, dynamic and seemingly indispensable form of lifestyle and a productive behaviour. The main advantage of m-government as an extension of the platform of e-government, would be this drastic change in our dynamic societies as well as peoples mind which is always influenced by new technologies and their affect, which also in a sense announced being mobile all the time as a great feature. In this context, the study of the various categories of contribution of m-government in developing countries provides a great deal of insight into how the ICT can improve their governments yield a good service to the public.

Statement of the problem

Developing countries, such as Bangladesh, are always struggling towards developing the infrastructure of its communication and technology sector. E-government has been implemented in developed countries and is in all sense easily available to their citizens. It needs a lot of power consumption and proper fibre optic connection to ensure full deployment of the system. On the contrary, in Bangladesh the need of electricity of 40% more than the total national production, with nearly 70% of the rural population have not yet have an electricity connection at their homes. Compared to that, nearly one third of the population occupies a mobile phone and this number is increasing every month by an average of 1.5 million mobile phone users. Hence the current study intends to analyze the pros and cons in implementing m-government options in Bangladesh with a feasibility study done after a complete research.

Purpose of the Study

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be considered as the backbone of modern day civilization. And m-government is one of the brightest assets of wireless ICT, feasible contributions of which could be inevitably numerous. Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. People of that country suffer from a good number of troubles all year round. And the private sector of Bangladesh is not as strong as that of the western world. So in case of any national or social trouble, the public have to rely almost solely to government arrangements. The dependency on the government is too high among the people of Bangladesh. As the author is from Bangladesh himself, there has been an honest purpose of finding a possibility of deploying an m-government system which might come out as truly beneficial for the common public of the country.

Importance of the Study

The study analyzes the importance of m-government in today's world and also scrutinizes through the technical implementation of the various aspects f establishing a beneficial m-government system in Bangladesh. It has also worked on three case studies and made an attempt to find out about the results. The whole overview of the m-government framework has come out of this study which might benefit any one who wants to know about the implementation of m-government and its various aspects and impacts.

Rationale of the Study

There is a vast amount of literature available on the fields of m-government and e-government though there are only a few noticeable studies on the feasibility of deploying ICT in all sectors of Bangladesh government.

The study proves its rationale by making it an honest and logical approach to find out the positive impacts and benefits of deploying m-government in Bangladesh. Also by analyzing the case studies taken from the practical fields of Bangladesh, the research identifies that m-government would be a lot more efficient than e-government and has a strong likelihood of becoming a success on taking the country a huge step further ahead from the other developing countries.

In this study, it has also been tried to hold a simple overview of various m-government applications which might easily be possible to implement in developing countries.

Definition of Terms

M-government stands for Mobile E-government, which are an extension of e-government and a matter of getting public sector IT systems geared to interoperability with the citizen's mobile devices.

Mobile devices are the devices using wireless ICT such as mobile phones, laptops, personal digital assistants (PDA) and wireless internet infrastructures.

ICT stands for information and communication technologies, which can be considered as the backbone of modern world information flow.

Decentralization is allocating the tasks of a central government to local authorities to govern a particular area in all aspects.

Overview of the Study

The current research paper intends to observe the emerging trends and the technologies establishing the trends in the field of m-government. The study also collects data on the benefits and challenges involved in the implementation of a full-functioning m-government in Bangladesh. The paper examines various scopes of m-government to become economically and democratically beneficial for Bangladesh as well as the developing countries basing on the data collected for this purpose. In this way, the paper finally analyzes the real impact of m-government on the public sector processes in Bangladesh and an attempt of proving this system being a better option rather than e-government has also been made.

Literature Review

Introduction

In this study, there would be attempt to see through the potential of various fields of the implementations of m-government. And this research is going to ride a number of steps of deeper insight of the most promising sector of public administration for a smart 21st century country. M-government is a very much practiced and discussed issue in running local administration and the focus of connecting regular public with the administration has never seen such an easier option in order to establish proper democracy as well.

The review in this section would first try to understand the different functions of government and the long hand of administration to run a country. Thus, the possible integration of ICT in the facilitation of these functions would also be studied thoroughly with a view of finding the dignified contribution of the system where e-government and m-government are playing a vital role. The comparisons and reasoning would always be focused on our main topic, which is the implementation potential of m-government in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a country representing the third world, with poor infrastructure and low communication facilities. The study intends to face the challenges in such present condition of the country and studies the possible issues of meeting them.

Government Functions

Mobile-government is basically the system of running government actions by using the utmost facility of mobile technologies. For this purpose it is not unreasonable to find out what actually are the basic functions of a government. Mobile technology might be sought into the stream of the various actions of a government. Let us see how below.

In a democratic country, the government is the core wheel-power of the system on which the country runs. The main functions of a democratic government could be listed as:

• Providing protection of the citizens and their property
• Ensure the enforcement of law at all parts around the country
• Keeping in order with the rights and contributions of each and every citizen
• Connecting with people, as the people is the maker and decider of the government
• Create and maintain good foreign relationship focusing the welfare of the country, etc.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, we are now looking forward to the acceptance of democracy in almost every country in this world. Though the list of the duties of a democratic country in not exhaustive, the above are quite the same for all the independent territories and countries.

The facts that we are in the 21st century now; upon the boom in the technological sector at the end of the last century the contribution of new and innovative technologies in modern government system is inevitable. In this study, it tries to see how various government functions can get facilitated by fitting in the new technologies that can be offered.

As it has been experienced in Bangladesh that mobile technology and at a wider prospect, we can e-technology has spread to be in use at a broader scale in the commercial sector already; yet the government of Bangladesh has not adopted the technology that way. Especially when speaking for Bangladesh, connection with the public as being a People's Republic has not yet considered as the most important factor so far or the steps to be taken to strengthen this connection. But it is not expected for establishing proper democracy at all.

ICT Support Associating Government Functions

First to say, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is without a doubt the driving factor of the wheel of modern economy, financial, commercial and even administration systems. A system which has not yet adopted this technology lagged a lot behind than its competitors. It is not untrue to say that the invention and innovation of electronic technology has made the world faster and easier as well. There was an age say about a hundred years ago, when the only medium of communication was by sending letters or telegrams. For this one had to go to the telegram office or a post office for trying to contact others. Although the postal systems or telegram were quite fast at those days, but after the invention of wired land-phone or wireless mobile phone or even the Internet, who would have thought that the communication system would grow this faster. The flow of information got so much easier and faster that it has become a matter of seconds now, not days compared to those posting-letter-days.

A government is the centre organization of a country. It has the empowerment to rule the country and the power is been given by the citizens of a country. So needless to say that, the government functions are always about the welfare of the public. In order to strengthen this relation between the public and the government, we could not think anything else other than ICT for its contribution. Towards a process of evolving e-government system for the lift-up in the performance of government systems, ICT plays the core role in its own innovative quality.

One of major positive impacts that ICT brings into a government system is transparency in government actions. ICT can reduce corruption of government officials as well, which is a necessary issue in improving the government system in Bangladesh, as it has become the top most corrupted country quite a number of times. Technology can automate some processes which could have bared possibility of officials to involve in corruptions. Even the information access becomes possible easily to public. Government projects can also be planned properly and realistically by the use of ICT. The expenses for a development projects can be monitored continuously so that there might not be any gaps or illicit misuse which is a major problem currently residing in Bangladesh government projects. Roads, bridges or any other infrastructure projects are often stopped halfway through because of the shortage of fund which was initially passed to be underway with full funding. These sorts of corruptions are a regular incident in Bangladesh, which could see a light on resolving these problems by the innovative use of ICT.

And mobile-government system here re-enforces e-government benefits of making the public administration system more transparent, open, accessible and better connected to the public, being supported by ICT.

Being Mobile, Being Smarter

The most notable advantage of being “Mobile' is that it is being mobile. Mobile technologies enable the improvement of communication without a lot of infrastructural development, which might become a pretty much expensive project for most of the countries. This study will discuss the various projects of m-government taken throughout the world and tries to pay a deep thought about the prospect of those projects if being taken in Bangladesh.

So what is m-government and how can it become the new revolution towards a 21st century smart government? This study found after a lot of research that it is not a very difficult question to answer, as the contributions of m-government are pretty much crystal clear all around the world.

M-government has often considered for developing e-democracy. E-democracy can be defined by keeping the connection of the government with the public at the first line of consideration. Especially in developing countries where internet facilities are not available enough to really plan for public connection though web technology on its own. Without using mobile technology, the expectation for this would clearly see a failure. It has been a glowing fact that mobile phone users are running a pretty high number in developing countries. So the government could always think about mobile technology as a channel towards the citizens. With enhanced security and transparency, mobile systems may see a huge success in this context.

M-services under screening

Let us start with various pilot projects and existing systems using the service of mobile technology in different countries. The study would go on with the feasibility of the systems if to be implemented in Bangladesh.

This part of the study starts by stepping into China which is one of the most prominent countries in the world. China has seen some projects in order to improve the interaction between the government and the public. Such as, in China people can send text messages to the local member of their respective legislature. The local representatives can then be aware of their actions and continuously getting the feedback.

This is a great opportunity for the citizens to keep in touch with the person they have elected themselves to play on behalf of their local area. Mobile technology here holds a vital role by providing the SMS technology available. If we go for a cross-section of this service, say for example upon being elected as a representative of an area, the elected person has been given one or more mobile phone number which might be available for keeping communication from the citizens. Whenever there are problems arising or people are suffering in the remote rural areas, they can send their plea in a short informative form to the representative via SMS to take urgent steps about the matter. The representative could then be aware fully of this matter and take relevant actions as necessary. There might be a lot of communicational and/or technical gaps or complications needed to be solved, but we could just take this as simple awareness information. At least the representative would know what is going on with the people within the constituency.

In Bangladesh, issues related to the matter of clear and firm communication between the local parliament or union members and the public is not always dealt with adequate importance. The lack of this attitude is not acceptable in a country which has been struggling for over 30 years to establish democracy. It is not going to be babbling about if we say we could establish strong relationship between the public and their representative and reduce the distance between them.

Grameen phone is the leading mobile phone company in Bangladesh. Whenever the talk about the mobile phone technology in Bangladesh arises, Grameen phone would definitely appear with its solid base built upon its contribution towards setting up such a wonderful mobile network base in Bangladesh. Right now, about 98% of the population of Bangladesh are under the coverage area of Grameen phone. There has been already over $1.6 billion investment just to build and improve the network infrastructure with 10000 base-stations over 5600 locations in the country. And there is still, according to the last estimate in 2001, 79% of the population live in rural areas. Also as of September 2006, from an estimate only 38% of the population in Bangladesh have access to electricity. This means that even if the people from a remote rural part of Bangladesh do not have electricity, without which running a computer or a laptop is quite impossible; people would still be under the coverage of Grameen mobile network.

The introduction of Grameen phone here at this part of the study has a significant meaning. Considering the amount this company has invested developing the mobile telephony network infrastructure and the huge popularity it gained with over 20 million subscribers, this study keeps a preferable position for this company in mind while discussing about the feasibility of implementing m-government systems and its various applications.

Going back to the topic of building and strengthening the communication between the public and their political or social representative, having a strong mobile telephony network like Grameen phone has established in Bangladesh would come really handy for the case of remote rural areas. Even the people from far deep inside the hills and jungles could also be able to not be “lost' at least by their local representative to the government.

Now let's spot a light on what the experts in m-government systems are saying about the various features of this system. There were several seminars during the years of 2002 and 2003 on m-government and expert talks about this system came widely out at light. The experts defined m-government as a combination of two sets of features. There was the creation of the famous 24/24, 7/7 concept by Zalesack (2002) which gives importance on building the freedom of mobile access and services that can be delivered from anywhere at any time. It holds the core meaning of being actually “mobile'. Roggenkamp (2004) also emphasized mobility; device mobility, service mobility and user mobility. All these opinions of the experts support the idea here which is the distinguished advantage of the technology on the move.

It is not irrational to mention that with a mobile phone in a person's pocket means a communication with that person is almost always possible as long as the mobile phone is in the person's pocket. No other device has made it possible and it holds a lot of significance while considering m-governance system. Any citizen could be connected to government services 24/7 if appropriate systems are there. The government outreach can be expanded unimaginably based upon this fact of mobile telephony system.

In between 2002 and 2003, as a part of a Swiss national research project within the framework of COST A14, MIR-CdM-EPFL carried out an evaluation and comparison of e-government projects in six European contexts (Rossel, P Finger, M and Misuraca, G, 2006). Some of them were regional or national, others municipal, especially the cases of Bologna (Italy), Issy-les-Moulineaux (France), Tampere (Finland), Estonia, Ireland and France (Buser, Cotti, Rossel and Finger, 2003). The services which have been implemented were:

• In lssy-les-Moulineaux (France), the possibility to pay parking or reserving a parking slot using a mobile phone, to make a reservation for a local hotel room, to make a reservation for a local hotel room, to make a reservation for books, records, DVD at the media library or a game in the game library.
• In Tampere (Finland), the possibility to check availability and make reservations at the local library, to have access to bus schedules and to map service for addresses, road work or any zoning issue, as well to social service information, medical services.
• In Estonia, the facilitation of payment by internet and SMS.
• In Estonia and In Ireland, administrative data access, for the citizen, on a 24/24 and 7/7 basis and national database access, for businesses.

These above implementations were not as fruitful as expected after a revisit of the programs. According to the situation in Bangladesh, the possible impact that may be brought by these services being implemented would also come with a few question marks. Especially speaking of the information being sought after by mobile phones would require a strong and secure database at the service end which is not on its best condition in Bangladesh at the moment. But about the context of paying by SMS from a mobile phone is already been implemented in a number of notable projects:

• Grameen phone has started a service of “bill-payment' which enables subscribers to pay the utility bills via SMS. The bill amount will be simply deducted from the users mobile phone account and going to post-offices or bill payment centres are not necessary now-a-days as it can be done from home simply by a text message.
• Cell-bazar is another innovative shopping idea that been introduced also by Grameen Phone. A customer can ask for a list of products in the area of interest by sending a text message. Upon receiving the list, the subscribers can then bid for the product by sending SMS and the bidding system is not a lot different than that of eBay instead the bidding is coming via a text message from a mobile phone. A subscriber can also sell by sending short description within the limited space of an SMS by sending a text message. When someone wins the bid, gets a text message containing the winning notification and even the customer then pay for the item via SMS as well. The product is then shipped by traditional portage though. But a lot of work here has been done simply by using a mobile phone from the rest of the customer's phone.
• Most recently there has been an inauguration by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh of a new university admission project where m-technology has also been implemented. Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) have announced that student can now book for admission tests simply via sending SMS. Students will have to send their Higher Secondary Certificate exam results via SMS to the university. The university database will justify the student's ability to sit for the exam and will send them their roll-number and the date f the exam, even with a short form of seat-plan. All the students have to do is paying the fees for the exam via SMS which will be deducted from the student's mobile phone account and then appear at the exam bringing an attested copy of their photograph along with them. The complicated admission process is been simplified this way only by using m-technology even by sending the student results for their exams via SMS. The hassle of travelling to university to collect the admission forms and then going to the bank to pay the fees and come again to sit for the exams used to take half of the student's stamina even before the exams. Now hopefully a student from a rural area wishing to attend the admission test at SUST will not have to sweat to even get a final registration number for the test by coming to the city.

Thus we could see that mobile-payment systems can be utilized at more widespread areas upon seeing these projects which are coming out to be pretty handy. So on considering the six European contexts, mobile payment method could be a feed for the thought of implementing m-government system in Bangladesh.

Another feature of m-governance that can be put into consideration is getting the public opinion in an easy way. It has been quite a regular practice at the newspapers in Europe. In the UK, popular newspapers regularly put up a poll about several government decisions and actions. People can easily express their clear opinions by sending SMS to the newspapers and they are getting published like broad daylight. Opinions of the citizens are not suppressed yet the government could easily get into people's minds and be cautious on taking any steps against the will of majority. Sometimes it has not been proved handy though. Just to mention the huge protest in British newspapers along with a huge number of citizen's opinion against the singing of British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary for the re-introduction of European Union Constitution which could not be stopped eventually. But the opinions of general British public were being brought out into lights by the newspapers which gave the readers an option to send opinions via SMS.

Surprisingly true that the newspapers in Bangladesh has not yet adopted this method of receiving public opinions on various issues and matters related to the country or even their society. They still rely on letters being sent by the readers. Some of the newspapers do accept emails but they are very few in number. Keeping the huge number of mobile phone subscribers in consideration, it could become a widely accepted form of expressing citizen's thoughts via national newspapers and could have a positive impact on even changing the society a lot more constructively.

Mobile technology can also be used innovatively in voting campaigns (Emmanuel C. Lallana, 2008). Mobile-voting has been a regular practice in television programs and new product feedbacks to the releasing companies for quite a long time. By connecting a database, SMS votes sent by mobile phones could possibly turn around the current scene voting reality. In a national election, it can encourage better voter registration and voter turn-out at the poll at the election days. There is a case of this in Spain 2004 election where voter turnout was at the highest rate.1

Even in Macedonia, mobile phones been used as election campaign tools when an organization sent two SMS to encourage women to vote for women in the 2006 national elections. And the result came out as an increased 29% of representatives at the parliament of Macedonia are women.2

1. http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/03/23/a11_16.php

2. http://www.newtactics.org/en/node/1685

These above facts are a clear indication of the ability of mobile technology of increasing public involvement in government elections. Bangladesh can obviously see the benefits from these projects and the outcomes of them as it is a democratic country that sees a national election in every five years. A country consisting of population over 100 million and having a voter number of almost 60 million voters, it experiences one of the biggest democratic elections in the world. Following the success of the use of mobile phones in the two countries mentioned above, Bangladesh can also use the same technology for the purposes. Although by taking a huge and almost incredible project for voter registration by providing the voters a National Identity Document (NID) in the year of 2008, Bangladesh showed its positive struggle towards becoming a successful democratic country. The project has gone for almost 18 months with tens of thousands of computer trained personals working hard to complete working for it, which is the first biometric voter registration process in South Asia. The voter's data have been stored in a national database and each voter has been given a national ID number. This successful project can help in a lot of ways in the implementation of m-governance and e-governance. Since there is a secure national database now setup already, it should not be a problem to have a citizen's mobile phone number added into the database along with the ID number as well. It is a matter of government's duty to aware the citizens about the importance of it. Even the Non-government Organizations can also play a big part in helping the government in this matter. The outreach of the government would then be increased at a level when any useful information could easily be sent to the citizens via SMS technology. Moreover, women in Bangladesh have also been experiencing a second class citizen's respect still. Because of the conservative nature in the society, most women would not step out of their homes to the polls for casting their votes. They are not even familiar with a widely accepted nature of women in power though Bangladesh herself has had two female Prime Ministers in the past and the current Prime Minister is also a female. Steps can be taken following those in Macedonia by sending awareness text messages to women to involve in the democratic process of electing a government with the same rights as men and even empower women of their choice with dignity as a democratic citizen.

Potential Problems on the way

Problems that may rise during the implementation of m-government system in Bangladesh are identified below:

1. Infrastructure: The government of Bangladesh have to be aware of proper infrastructural development of ICT all around the country. Though mobile phone networks has 98% coverage of the country population, still the service-end infrastructure such as the PC which would send out information to mobile phones and to which the mobile phones will get connected to, should be set up with a secure database protected by a secure server. Right software should be installed and a trained manpower is needed.
2. Secure Payment System: When considering m-payment as a future most widely accepted version of payment, the government should come up with a series of serious security regulations for online and mobile payment transactions and should put all attempts to enforce these regulations strictly to gain public confidence in freely use this convenient system without any mental stress or hassle.
3. No Spam: There could be a new law about mobile phone numbers as there is now about email addresses. That is, the government should ensure that citizen's mobile phone number or any information will be kept safe and secure and will not even face risks to go in the hands of third parties.
4. User-friendliness: As long as the government keeps the services provided through m-government easily accessible and understandable for the citizens to make them feel easy to participate in government actions, the success of this new and innovative system should not face any hinder.

In order to set up m-governance to work in full swing with all its advantages and to reduce the disadvantages and loop-holes of this system, the government should intensively work on these problems.

Summary

Through this literature review, this study has analysed a number of aspects of mobile-government system and it is not going to be big nonsense to say that the essence of this system has been realized during this careful review. When a system sets off on its way, it should never look behind and better is if it goes ahead with all its prospects being fruitful. Mobile telephony is not just a matter of making communication between people easier, moreover it can be used for making a government system run more clear and transparent than before. That should not be under-estimated and Bangladesh is in clear need of adopting this system, as the government of this country has not been practising the basic features of democracy. That could be easier to establish through the implementation of m-government. Since the similar services are already widely in use in the commercial sector in the country, why not the government adopts the technology and use it for the welfare of the citizens? Challenges it might face through the road to there should be faced and Bangladesh have the ability which is the main topic of this study.

Research Methodology

Research Approach:

All through this paper, the research objective has been to study the potential of m-government implementation in Bangladesh as well as other developing countries. Quoting Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell (2001, page 167), -"The researcher's challenge is not just generating data, but in creating a vision from that data", the study has also followed the same principle as an original research attempting the analysis of various pros and cons of deploying m-government framework in developing countries.

The study goes on with identifying historical case study analysis as a suitable research method for this paper. Historical research studies focus on events that have led to a current interest regarding a specific problem or issue. If this type of research is chosen, the researcher considers a past situation that is related to an important current situation, which requires investigation and re-evaluation based on current data. It can also be described as the collection of data and other information concerning a significant past event and analyzes the data and information to provide a comprehensive and objective description of it. The historical research supplements the observation in which the researcher seeks to test the authenticity of the reports or observations made by others. As the study involves the observation of a lot of articles and reports produced by surveyors, government agencies and industry experts, the current study finds the historical research approach to be most suitable. Moreover the study needs to present facts from reporting events and conditions that are suitable with e-government and m-government field, facts which analyzed past attempts of deploying e-government and m-government framework for public services.

Case Study Approach

Case studies are the preferred research strategy when “how', “what' and “why' questions are being asked, when the researcher has little control over the event, or when the research is being carried out in a real-life context (Bums, 1990). Yin (1988, p.23) defines case study as, -"An empirical study that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used".

Yin (1994) recommended the use of case-study protocol as part of a carefully designed research project that would include the following sections:

• Overview of the project (project objectives and case study issues)
• Field procedures (credentials and access to sites)
• Questions (specific questions that the investigator must keep in mind during data collection); and
• Guide for the report (outline, format for the narrative) (Yin 1994, p. 64)

The unit of analysis is a critical factor in case study. It is typically a system of action rather than an individual or group of individuals. Case studies tend to be selective, focusing on one or two issues that are fundamental to understanding the system being examined.

Case studies are multi-perspective analyses, which mean that the researcher considers not just the voice and perspective of the actors, but also the relevant groups of actors and the interaction between them. This one aspect is a significant point in the characteristic that case studies possess. When sociological studies present many studies of the homeless and powerless, they do so from the viewpoint of the “elite'. (Feagin, Orum & Sjoberg, 1991)

In this study, an attempt is made to establish the facts in order to arrive at conclusions concerning past events or to predict future events with the emergence of various significant needs and impacts of modern day technologies and socio-government systems to arrive at the rationale of establishing an m-government framework in developing countries.

Data Gathering Methods:

In an attempt to collect data, the study used the steps provided below:

Isolating the problem: The problem statement has been defined as -"MOBILE GOVERNMENT: AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO FURTHER IMPROVEMENT OF E- GOVERNMENT IN BANGLADESH".

Collect source materials, including primary and secondary sources: The study gathers literature on different research opinions regarding the establishment and impacts of m-government in order to facilitate public sector services. The study also collects industry facts from the articles and news blogs to support the assumptions gathered.

Evaluate source material: The study evaluates the facts and assumptions in the light of the case studies to identify the real impacts of deploying m-government in developing countries.

Formulate hypotheses: The study then intends to draw up the hypothesis.

Report and interpret findings: The study proposes to interpret the analysis as findings in the coming section to determine the potential of m-government implementation in Bangladesh.

Sources of Information: This study uses a secondary source of information such as books, internet sources, technology tutorials, new articles, online blogs, and review of the existing research and other references to collect facts on the technology architecture, assessments, and evaluates them with the case studies on m-government and related e-government implementation in Bangladesh to draw conclusions.

Originality and Validity of Data: The collected information is checked with source authentication through proper citations. Internal criticism is used by the researcher, to validate the accuracy and relevance of the source with reference to the scope of the research. An unbiased argument of sources is considered to make the study competent and honest. The validity of data is also maintained by using the latest and current information on arguments and trend news.

Limitation of study: The study has the following limitations:

• Time: Since the period of study becomes the major limitation, determining the impact of the technology on the business outcomes becomes time-consuming and one cannot consider the direct observation of results.
• Available resources: The scope of the books and literature is quite limited.
• Previous research: There is no significant research dealing directly with the potential of implementing m-government in Bangladesh, limiting the established facts for the study.
• The inherited limitations of the approach: As Yin stated (1994), -"The body of literature in case study research is “primitive and limited' in comparison to that of experimental or quasi-experimental research. The requirements and inflexibility of the latter forms of research make case studies the only viable alternative in some instances. It is the fact that case studies do not need to have a minimum number of cases, or to randomly “select' cases. The researcher is called upon to work with the situation that presents itself in each case."

Approach

As suggested by Yin (1994) the three principles of data collection for case studies are:

1. Using multiple sources of data
2. Creating a case study database
3. Maintaining a chain of evidence

The rationale for using multiple sources of data is the triangulation of evidence. Triangulation increases the reliability of the data and the process of gathering it. In the context of data collection, triangulation corroborates the data gathered from other sources.

The study adopts the case study evaluation method and the document study method to prove the hypothesis.

Case study observation provides very engaging and real time explorations of the technological implementations of the topic. The study identifies the driving factors and the challenges involved in the implementation of m-government in Bangladesh. It also studies sustainable networking development programs undertaken consistent to present infrastructural situation in Bangladesh. The study has taken content analysis provided in the form of cases that are closely related with the topic assumptions.

Along with the case study evaluation, the study also performs Document study to bring out a basic understanding of electronic and mobile government scenario in a developing country like Bangladesh. The study directly uses the abstracts and excerpts from several sources, to maintain the meticulousness of the information. The types of documents used for the study includes study reports, online articles and journals. The validity of the documents are maintained through proper citations.

Objectives of Case Study Evaluation

The current study settings have the following objectives:

• Increasing the understanding of what is a “should or should not' to implement m-government in Bangladesh.
• Building the skills in assessing the resource strengths and weaknesses and in conducting strategic analysis before and during m-government implementation and in facing competitive and expansion situations.
• Getting valuable practice in identifying strategic issues that need to be addressed while planning, implementing, evaluating strategic alternatives, and formulating workable plans of actions.
• Enhancing the sense of business judgement, as opposed to uncritically accepting the authoritative crutch of the professor or -"back-of-the-book" answers.
• Gaining in-depth exposure into the field of mogvernment and related networking arena that has been untaken in Bangladesh, thereby acquiring something close to actual practical experience.

The strengths of the method are as below:

Cases are stable, as the variability of data is completely eliminated. As the published data of the organizations does not vary at a single instance of time, the information is stable.

Cases are unobtrusive. Cases publish the rich profile of the organizations in context to the topic under study.

The cases give exact information with names and figures. The cases being rich in information presents the broad coverage based on the time span of the case.

Data Gathering Method

Case selection

The study used information oriented sampling while selecting the sampling rather than random Sampling (Flyvbjerg 2006). As random sampling may not provide relevant to the topic, the cases do not provide relevant information on problems and challenges involved in implementing m-government in Bangladesh. Random samples emphasizing representativeness will seldom produce this kind of insight, it is more appropriate to select a few cases chosen for their validity.

The study observes paradigmatic cases as suitable to identify the past and current attempts to establish a firm network environment in different sectors in Bangladesh, relating to further improvement to implementing m-government to support the citizen's involvement in democracy of the country.

Database of Study

BetterCOM

The customer

BetterCOM is a customer service provider company and also operating as a call centre of a small scale in the north-eastern city of Sylhet in Bangladesh. It has a customer basis of a number of private limited companies and provides customer service on behalf of its clients.

The profile of this company including providing with customer service on behalf of the client companies, designing and implementation of improved customer service and researching innovative ways of better communication with customers. The company connects with around 30000 customers of 7 different companies.

The Challenge

One of the client companies of BetterCOM is an Internet Service Provider (ISP), named Galaxy Online Ltd. which has been a client for more than one and a half years. Galaxy Online was a new company in its field and used to have a customer base of around only 1200. After a market research, Galaxy Online found in the feedbacks from the customers that the continuous trouble with failure of electricity in that region of the country was making the use of the Internet difficult for the customers. So they needed a better way to connect to the ISP in case of any failure of the Internet facility, due to shortage of electricity and load-shedding, as customers normally find it easy and peaceful to contact the service provider right away after a trouble with the service.

Galaxy Online asked BetterCOM to find other ways to contact the ISP as land phones are not that much available in that small town, as applying for a land phone costs a lot. In response to the client's request, BetterCOM had to think about other options of customer service with keeping the financial budget in mind

The Solutions

After the initial planning with the design and implementation team, BetterCOM came up with the idea of providing a contact form at the “Contact Us' section of the main website of Galaxy Online and also a “Live Chat'. The idea was basing around the fact that the client company was itself an Internet Service Provider.

The new options for customer communication were implemented and few days went quite alright. Customers liked the new system of contacting their service provider and there was a good feedback from the customers for a while.

But the problems rose again when the negative feedbacks were coming in from the customers about the communication with their ISP. BetterCOM had to resolve the problem by tracking down the natures of the problems customers facing though it was not their field. The company discussed with Galaxy Online about the different troubles the customers normally face.

The outcome of the trace was the highly random event of electricity failure in the town of Sylhet and the surrounding areas. BetterCOM had to study through other call-centres and their customer service system in Bangladesh and the neighbouring India and found a solution which might become the useful and customer-friendly one.

BetterCOM introduced a system where customers can use their mobile phones to inform the ISP about the troubles they are facing with their Internet service. Keeping in mind the increasing number of mobile phone subscribers in the town of Sylhet as well as the whole country, BetterCOM attempted to find a solution to implement the idea of getting the help from this wide-spread mobile telephone culture that is growing day-by-day. And mobile phones also operate even when there is no electricity.

To introduce this system, BetterCOM provided the customers with three mobile phone numbers on behalf of Galaxy Online and opened an option for the customers to SMS the troubles in short form to any one of these numbers. The customers can always save the numbers at their mobile phones and they even need a land phone or electricity supply to run the computer in order to email the ISP.

On the other hand, BetterCOM connected three Nokia mobile phones with the numbers that were given to the customers, with three computers. The Nokia PC Suite application has been kept open on these computers all the time using Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) and a company electricity generator in case of electricity failure. Whenever a customer is facing a problem with the service and contacted the ISP by sending SMS, the PC Suite application shows the text message coming into the computer. Then an operator forwards the message to Galaxy Online straight away via email or simply forwarding the SMS to the mobile phone number of the technician of Galaxy Online.

The Result

BetterCOM introduced this system of communication with the customer upon tracing the fact of the continuous lack of electricity in the town of Sylhet. It has seen a success in creating more favourable communication for Galaxy Online with its customers using the SMS system.

According to a financial review, it has been found that an SMS is merely expensive in Bangladesh. It only costs Tk 2.5 (approx. 2 pence) per SMS. So the customers had not been introduced to an expensive solution instead a quite useful one.

Thus the follow-up, improved customer service from BetterCOM and a quicker technical support from Galaxy Online made a good understanding and reliability among the customers about the ISP. It's customer base grown significantly.

The project can be rated as successful and meeting its goal on a reliable ground.

Recommendations

1. As the study found that introducing the mobile phones to improve customer service made a success, any project should trace deep into the core problem it is on to solve. Here the electricity failure was the main reason of the trouble among with others, so mobile phone technology appeared as the solution.

2. The realisation of the increasing number of mobile phone subscribers in the area of project over the problem of the lack of electricity made it clear that mobile technology has enhanced the electronic services potential.

Validity of Data

Validity would be one of the main concerns with any research. -"Any research can be affected by different kinds of factors which, while extraneous to the concerns of the research, can invalidate the findings". (Seliger & Shohamy 1989, 95)

It is a primary responsibility for every researcher to control all possible factors that threaten the research's validity. This study should be thoroughly checked for internal validity with a proper balance in the structure of design and adoption of appropriate research instruments. The adoption of case-study evaluation is highly suitable to find out the impact implementing m-government by observing the cases of the attempts of implementing e-government in a third-world country like Bangladesh.

-"Findings can be said to be internally invalid because they may have been affected by factors other than those thought to have caused them, or because the interpretation of the data by the researcher is not clearly supportable". (Seliger & Shohamy 1989, 95)

Summary

The above study has observed the case study evaluation of a small town project of implementing mobile technology in Bangladesh. The same technology can be used in the implementation of m-government along with others. And there also has been a signal of the limitation of implementing e-government which could be enhanced by introducing mobile technology. This case can be considered as a step towards the establishment of the so-called -"Digital Bangladesh", which is a much-practiced word currently in the country, relating to the topic of the development of Bangladesh.

Data Analysis

After the analysis of the facts been discussed here in this study, the following interpretation has been made:

• Failure of e-government project without the full involvement of the public, which can be possible using mobile telephony.
• Publishing government information via web is not going to be overall successful as the first step of establishing e-transparency in Bangladesh.
• In a democracy, the government cannot fully perform when there is no connection with general public. While the Internet is not as easy to get as it is in Europe or US, it would not be a good idea to try to connect people with government through the web.

There have already been a lot of applications of mobile phones in Bangladesh. Except that they are being used majorly in commercial services, not too much enthusiasm is there from the government in this field. After seeing the landslide success on getting votes in various televisions programs (Such as, Close Up 1, Marks All-rounder, etc.), where the viewers have to choose their favourite participant and they can do so by sending SMS votes easily from their mobile; lots of companies are now even thinking about majoring their way of customer service through mobile phones.

Currently there are around 45.4 million mobile phone customers are in Bangladesh, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BRTC). That is almost 40 % of the total population. It is not impossible to anticipate that the government of Bangladesh wants to establish e-government in the country and it would be a lot easier if it is possible to connect with almost all of the population, which, from above figure, is clearly understandable that it is not that difficult if the connection is made through mobile phones.

The government of Bangladesh has taken one step though in the field of distance learning. Bangladesh Open University (BOU) has a praising way of teaching students through videos. Mobile phone application is also used to facilitate the learning process and exams. It can be a role-model for Bangladesh to keep continues upon setting up new pilot projects to implement the maximum of m-government in the country.

Whatever has been started as an innovative method of delivering lecture and taking exams is without a doubt holding a good sign of the rise of the need to establish mobile technology in Bangladesh now.As explained by Dr. Rashid, the current Vice Chancellor of BOU, it helped students to be present at the exclusive lectures live and interact in all aspects. Attendances are kept by asking students to register by Short Messaging Service (SMS) from their mobile phone. The server keeps the record. Student also viewed the video of the lecture by answering and voice calls. Server responds to the student and the students answered their questions by SMS, which is stored in the server as well. Thus student's answers are evaluated for further improvement of lectures without any kind of delay.

The feedback mechanism of distance learning improved at a high standard comparable to that of developed countries. And this was possible because of the adoption of mobile technology and its vast availability.

Bangladesh is the country, among above other poor countries, which have established a model for rural access to mobile phones through out the country, quickly acclaimed initiatives of Grameen Phone Ltd. Followed by other mobile companies (Hossain et al., 2005). So, when most of the rural areas do not have enough electricity to run a computer or proper infrastructure to have broadband internet facilities, people do still have mobile phones with enough network coverage. That has the key to reach remote rural areas and form a bond between the government and the public from those areas.

The need for this facility has been realised clearly from a recent field-study in Bangladesh. It has not been too long before when the government of Bangladesh announced to save day-light and leg the time one hour behind. It has been officially put in action at 19th of June, 2009. But even after around two months later, it has been noticed in the remote rural areas that people from over there did not even know about this time-change. They were not aware of this government decision to change the national time because the government only announced the news on television or news papers. And in Bangladesh, still these days almost 70% of the people do not even get electricity or news papers in their region.

Thus, it is a huge gap between the public and the government, which is formed by the public them-selves. In a democratic country it is not acceptable as a proper practice.

The aftermath of this study and the analysis of the facts of current telecommunication situation in Bangladesh, the following points can be considered for the initial development of ICT implementation in the country:

1. Following a hugely successful voter-registration of around 80 million citizens, Bangladesh government can also add a unique mobile number to their database. The database can be shared and accessed by local governments to ensure the connection of all registered citizens in rural areas.
2. Following that, government can let all the registered citizens know by sending an SMS about the recent declaration and bills that have been passed and going to be imposed as the law of the country.
3. There can be a complaint centre established in every local jurisdiction having a mobile phone number where citizens can send any complains against any unacceptable government official steps via SMS.
4. Bangladesh is a country which faces natural disaster almost every year. Cyclones, floods, earthquakes are regular events in that country. And every government's prime duty is to protect its citizens at the utmost. Using mobile technology it can be easier to send latest upcoming news about any natural disaster from the weather office to the citizens, monitored by the government.
5. The idea of mobile-voting in national elections has not been properly reviewed yet for security reasons in Bangladesh. But it can also help rush the matters of a more complicated national matter to simplify.

There may be some drawbacks of the system which might arise at certain point:

• Database security system is always a concern in a country with low infrastructural facilities. Ensuring the security and authenticity of the citizen's details, including the mobile number is a major consideration upon implementing such a system in Bangladesh.
• After being announced as the most corrupted country in the world for several times, Bangladesh will surely face the challenge of keeping and running the system with enough clarity and honesty.
• Citizens even should be properly aware of their basic duties to make the system successfully running. It is not solely up to the government but the first initiative should be taken by the administration itself.

Summary

This study has tried to analyse the potential of implementing m-government in Bangladesh and the advantages and disadvantages of this along with e-government. The study has thus closely observed the functional architecture of m-government in the developed countries and then followed on to the attempt to see the potential of this application in Bangladesh, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.

It has been tried to shed a light first at the existent m-government systems in developed countries, especially in Europe. The different projects been taken in Europe are reviewed thoroughly to justify the success and failures of the system and have been consciously thought to adjust and fit into the current ICT administration system in Bangladesh. The study found various advantages of m-government in the developed countries. There are theories of successful implementation of this system also. As per the specialist's comments, the whole system has been studied through and designed.

After that, the study also tried to hold the present picture of ICT in Bangladesh. Despite not being comparable at all with the condition of developed countries, the potential has still been captured to an extent relevant to the present situation in the country. Scalability and availability of the system is of vast potential in Bangladesh. Even the risks were also were kept in mind while the deliberate discussion.

There were two case studies been discussed about the first few steps of the country towards e-government and the results of them. Both of the cases left the realizations of engaging public into the system as much as possible.

Recommendations

The study encourages to take the opportunity of having a fact that over 40% of the population of Bangladesh have mobile phones, which is quite unusual for a poorly-developed country. There might be some pilot projects taken at a small rural jurisdiction to verify the success of the system by ensuring whether the citizens are feeling comfortable coping with the system or not. Even the success and failure could also be judged by the end of the project and based upon that it can be a huge stepping forward towards the ICT revolution in the country.

The main advantage of mobile phone technology is that it is “mobile'. By adopting the dynamic features of this technology, it can play an important role in establishing transparency in government actions and its contribution to the development of the country. There is already mobile-voting software developed by the students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology which uses ad hoc network applications for collaboration. The application is being used to study issues of human judgement and decision making within varying decision contexts spontaneously.

In near future, it is not insane to expect that the national elections are held by the accepting votes by SMS from the registered mobile phones of the citizens.

Conclusion

Today's world has entered the 21st century with a target where ICT is playing a lead role. No country in the world can deny and pass away from the inevitable contribution of ICT in today's world economic and social development. Bangladesh falls at the rear of the line of the list of ICT developed countries. It is a country where most of the people spend almost all day seeing for food and shelter. Natural disasters are quite regular guests to visit the country which multiplies the distress of the poor people. Living is less than existing for a vast proportion of people, without even filling up the primary needs.

Even in this pathetic scenery, the youth of the country is fighting to rise and there is a clear attempt being noticed from the new generation to stand up and go along with the new world in the 21st century. The last national election saw the public a new word, holding a new dream, which is -"making a Digital Bangladesh". This was the main agenda for almost all the parties contending each other at the election. Moreover, after 38 years of independence, Bangladesh is still struggling to establish proper democracy where transparency is in need and corruption is everywhere. This study is going to conclude by making a strong hope that Mobile Government system, if properly implemented, is going to build a strong step towards the goal of this poor yet brave and hard-working nation.

Bibliography

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