Since much of the Internet technology (laptops, telecentres etc) seems to be landline based, yet it is cellular telephony that is flourishing in many of the less developed countries, is there a 'disconnect' here that may be inhibiting the spread of the Internet to rural areas?...I just came back from Yemen where cellphones predominate, and coverage has been obtained over most of the country... so voice connections are now relatively normal even to remote rural districts...but Internet of course (notwithstanding the Arabic language issue) is largely confined just to cities...
John Lawrence Don Richardson wrote: ..<snip>... > The telephone is the most basic unit of telecommunications service. The > policies and programs implemented in support of rural telephony services > are a critical part of the supporting environment for other rural ICT > initiatives. In most cases rural connectivity can best piggyback on or > leverage infrastructure that is primarily intended to support rural > telephony. Among rural populations, voice communications will usually be > the most immediately useful and easily accessible service (application). ..snip... ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org