December 6, 2004
Rural Africa joins mobile revolution
It may appear at first glance an unchanged scene of rural life in sub-Saharan Africa, reports the BBC.
"But in this remote and hilly north west corner of Tanzania, the women are working in the shadow of some of the latest telecommunications technology.
Their land surrounds a 50 metre mobile telecoms transmitter, part of a modern network which is gradually opening up some of Tanzania's poorest and most remote regions to mobile communications.
Villagers are also often employed in casual labour when work begins at a remote base station site.
[...] "The spin-off for the villagers is quite huge," says Mr Adams. "They sell vouchers for pre-pay phones, small business are set up and families start coming out of absolute poverty.
[...] For rural communities in developing countries like Tanzania, pre-pay mobile phones - which enable users to send relatively cheap SMS text messages across distances that would otherwise take days to travel - are changing lives for the better, says Dar es Salaam-based telecoms industry analyst, Simbo Ntiro.
"If you do not have access to a mobile phone, you are simply unable to operate within a large country like Tanzania, which has a difficult transport network," he says.
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