Jan. 17, 2008 from BBC.co.uk
If I had told you ten years ago that by the end of 2007 there would be an international network of wirelessly-connected computers throughout the developing world, you might well have said it wasn't possible.
I would probably have said the same, but as it turns out we would have been wrong: it was possible, and it was created, and it continues to expand, not through Non-Governmental Organisations or charity or development grants but through the market, with much of it financed by some of the poorest people on the planet.
I am talking, of course, about the mobile phone network.
Along with the internet, with which it is rapidly merging, this is the most astonishing technology story of our time, and one that has the power to revolutionise access to information across the developing world.
Unfortunately, rich country biases limit understanding of this amazing phenomenon: for those in North America or Western Europe the cell phone is primarily or uniquely a phone designed to make voice calls.
In the rich world, even those who use the mobile for other tasks such as e-mail almost always do so as an adjunct to their "computer" (ie, the desktop or laptop in their home or office): the mobile phone is used for those tasks only when the "computer" isn't accessible.
Full article is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7106998.stm
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