Cellphones in Africa

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Andreas Ramos <andreas () andreas com>
Date: July 24, 2005 1:18:02 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Cellphones in Africa
Reply-To: Andreas Ramos <andreas () andreas com>


Mobile phones boom in Tanzania
By Simon Hancock
BBC Click Online


In the third of Click Online's reports in this month's Africa season,  
we visits Tanzania where mobile phones are taking the country by  
storm, although only one in 10 houses has electricity.

An alien landing in Tanzania could be forgiven for thinking that the  
only business here was the mobile phone. Over the last few years they  
have completely taken over the landscape. Some 97% of Tanzanians say  
they can access a mobile phone, and what is just as interesting, as  
in many African countries, is how those phones are being used.

Take the island of Zanzibar for example. Here, fishing is one of the  
mainstays of the economy, supplying restaurants and hotels with fish  
for the many tourists who visit the island. Many fishermen now carry  
mobile phones while they are at sea, and they use them to check  
market prices. If there are too many fish in Zanzibar, they sail to  
Dar es Salaam to get better prices to make more money.

Phones also serve another even more vital use, allowing fishermen in  
trouble to call for assistance.

Landline debate

As well as the novel uses you find for the phones, it is the sheer  
extent of coverage that you notice here. You can get a signal in  
places so remote you would not even think to turn your mobile on if  
you were in the US or Europe, such as the smallest villages or even  
on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.

It is fair to say that the mobile networks are so dominant that the  
country will probably never develop or need a fixed-line  
infrastructure. But recently a debate has been raging as to whether  
this kind of leap-frogging may have any downside. It was always  
assumed that here lurks the spectre of the digital divide. Since the  
first internet evangelists emerged from the mist, it has become  
gospel that for economies to grow and business to flourish, the  
internet was essential. After all, it was in the West. So, without  
landlines, the communications industry would stall, internet take up  
would be hampered and all kinds of economic horrors would be  
unleashed. However, no-one told the Tanzanians about these dire  
predictions, so they just got on with things.

Economy boost

Call centres have sprung up all over Tanzania. Most people do not  
actually own phones, so this is how many people communicate. It is a  
good business, and once again these phones are connected via GSM  
rather than landlines.

Others have developed even simpler businesses based around mobiles,  
such as reselling their air time to others, or make a living sending  
and receiving text messages. Mobile phones seem to have created a new  
sector of the economy, and some now wonder if the emphasis on the  
internet when looking at the digital divide was wrong-headed.

Len Waverman, an economics professor at London Business School, says:  
"Even in the more developed parts of Africa, where we thought the  
phone would just be a toy of the urban rich, it's not. "It really is  
a tool for business development, and it's moving across population  
segments that we really did not before believe would be accessible by  
these companies." Research has shown that increased mobile  
accessibility in Africa is boosting countries' economies in the same  
way that fixed-line installation in the west did in back in the 1970s.

Len Waverman (London Business School ) says: "The digital divide that  
we thought was really very big between Africa and the rest of us in  
the Western world is really diminishing, and it's the mobile phones  
doing it, not the PC."

Inspiring the West

Back in Zanzibar, the latest product by the island's cell phone  
operator, Zantel, looked traditional, but its fixed-style phone for  
homes will not connect by either copper wire or even fibre optics.  
Mohammed Salim, the CEO of Zantel, explains: "Our strategy is not to  
go on fibre-optics or copper wires, because that is too expensive.  
"We are thinking about going through the CDMA, which is a wireless  
system. That is a very useful and effective way of running out to the  
rural areas, and to the cities, and much faster than through copper."

Zantel has recently been granted a licence to extend outside Zanzibar  
and to operate nationwide. To extend their network across the country  
will cost just half a billion dollars. Even before their expansion,  
their subscriber base is growing 25% year on year. Mobile use in  
Tanzania and across Africa is gaining momentum all the time, and  
users continue to confound researchers with their creativity in using  
the devices. Already the West has started to look to Africa and the  
developing world for new ideas as to where to take the technology next.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/click_online/ 
4706437.stm
Published: 2005/07/22 15:20:03 GMT



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