Here is a paper that might be an interesting read for this thread. Written by Don Slater and Janet Kwami, it is about internet and mobile phone technologies in Ghana. http://www.isrg.info/ISRGWorkingPaper4.pdf
And I found it on this blog: http://joitskehulsebosch.blogspot.com/ Joitske is a projet coordinator (social networking, CoP etc.) for a Dutch NGOs. She has worked in Ghana for quite a number of years as an irrigation expert. With the recent news about child porno, I think we have another concern spouting from digitial divide? [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Dave A. Chakrabarti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Interesting...this research project seems to support an idea Taran voiced earlier, that developing nations will take to cell phone technologies faster than mobile computers / laptops, and that these technologies should be where the focus is. I'm interested in the logistics of this. India already has a more developed cell phone market than the US. No, I'm not kidding. The latest and greatest models available here have frequently been out in India for six months...sometimes even a year. Most (if not all) plans in India, including prepaid ones, have free incoming minutes for as little as $5, for a card that lasts three months. The US simply has nothing on that scale, because the telecoms here are trying to wring as much out of people as possible. In India, there is *always* a gigantic new market waiting to be tapped if you can lower your price point even a little. The problem, as I see it, is that lower-income populations in India use very basic cellular services. The latest and greatest phones with data communications features, photo sharing, cameras, and other gadgets are still excusively the realm of the well-to-do ...and the hardware costs a lot. Far more than the $100 Negropointe is pitching his laptop for. If we're going to promote cellular technologies as an answer to the Digital Divide, or even suggest that the market might be moving in this direction, then I agree wholeheartedly that the infrastructure is in place (or is being rapidly developed) where it needs to be. But what about the cost of the handsets? Providing features from a top-end phone (which actually is a phone / pda / portable gaming and media device) down to an affordable price point for lower income population is a challenge...perhaps more daunting than the idea of the $100 laptop, since we're talking about making the technology even more compact. A third option might be to look to mobile computing devices that operating on both the GSM band and the 802.11b/g/a bands. One machine connected to a cellular tower could act as a repeater for a mesh network model on both bands. This could solve some of the infrastructure costs of deploying wide-scale wireless networks, but would also require collaboration with the resident telcos, and (perhaps) increase the cost of the hardware slightly. Thoughts? Dave. ------------------- Dave A. Chakrabarti Projects Coordinator CTCNet Chicago [EMAIL PROTECTED] (708) 919 1026 ------------------- Charles Brennick wrote: >>From Seattle Times > Global digital divide grows wider, UW research finds > See > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002878653_digitaldivide21.html > > > > > ************************ > Charles Brennick > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > www.interconnection.org > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE > in the body of the message. > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. ============= [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
