Mobiles for the 'world's poorest' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Nearly half a million people, described by the UN as "the poorest of the poor", will soon be able to make mobile calls.

As part of a UN programme to tackle poverty in rural Africa, 79 villages across 10 African countries will be hooked up to cellular networks.

It is hoped that the connections will help improve healthcare and education, as well as boosting the local economy.

A 2005 study showed that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people could increase GDP growth by 0.6%.

"This is a technology that is remarkably empowering, especially for remote areas where the ability to communicate is vital," Dr Jeffery Sachs, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General, told the BBC News website.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6986804.stm

In many areas, introducing cellular networks may require less new infrastructure than introducing conventional landlines -- just as satellite radio and TV are the most efficient way to reach some remote areas.

Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, many years ago, that as developing countries enhance their technologies, there is no necessity for them to recapitulate the processes gone through by the Western inductrialized nations. They may be able to skip over steam trains and centralized steel mills and go straight to the more efficient, modern technologies that the industrialized West found only after decades of trial, error, and incremental improvement. In some cases, this may mean that such "basic" aspects of industrial development as large power plants, arterial highways, and centralized distribution of goods and information may be bypassed for less energy-intensive distributed networks based on more local production and less migration to urban centers.

Africa has been forced to wait a long time for many of the blessings of "modernization"; ironically, it may be lucky enough to miss out on some of them altogether.