Developing World Going Mobile
Mobile telephone services continues to route around damaged state-run landline systems in the developing world.
In India, only 7 percent of the population has a telephone. But that has increased from 1 percent compared to a decade ago, thanks in large measure to cellular service that is cheaper and easier to obtain than India’s state-run landline system.
The BBC reports that usage costs for mobile phones in India hovers at around 1 cent a minute, making it much more affordable than traditional telephone services, and that as many as 1.5 million Indians sign up for mobile phone service every month.
Meanwhile the BBC reports that Africa has the world’s fastest growing mobile phone market, expanding at an annual rate of 65 percent. About 6 percent of people in Africa use mobile phones and that number is expected to expand to as much as 20 percent by the end of the decade.
Source:
A mobile vision for Africa. The BBC, July 5, 2004.
Mobiles outstrip India landlines. The BBC, July 2, 2004.
The Developing World Going Mobile by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Tags: India