-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Lee Brisco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> That doesn't mean that, sitting in the USA, I will be able to call a tiny
rural village in Vietnam for a few pennies a minute. They still won't have
many phones. But it does mean that I will be able to call a hotel in Hanoi
for practically nothing.
Our teachers used to tell us when we were kids that we should appreciate our
awful school lunches because Chinese were starving and we'd reply "Name just
ONE Chinese!"
Yes, so I can call a village in Vietnam. Who do I ask for?
Humor aside: yes, it will soon be possible to call a Vietnamese village.
Craig McCaw, the cellular phone billionaire, and a guy in Seattle named Bill
something-the-other have pooled together a few billions and are putting up a
satellite system for cell phones and internet communications. 50% of the
world's population (name one!) has not yet placed a phone call. They will
build solar-powered satellite phone boxes, at about $1000 each. These will
be placed in the millions of Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. villages, which at
present have no phone lines at all. It's projected to cost about $3/min.
The potential is phenomenal. Web commerce is based on a tripod: browser,
Visa, and FedEx. A Vietnamese villager (name just one!) can use a browser to
look at Eddie Bauer's web catalog, order with Visa, and have it delivered by
FedEx. That's the three legs of the tripod: catalog, payment system, and
delivery system. Visa already handles 50% of the world's credit card
transactions. FedEx is secure delivery, anywhere in two days.
This is already common for web users in Japan and Europe; it's cheaper to
buy from the USA than to buy it in their local countries, and most countries
don't have the diversity/quality of many American products (don't get on my
back about this: I lived 15 years in Europe.)
So... fellow websters: we can foresee a glorious future of building commerce
web sites.
___________________________________________________
Andreas Ramos [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.andreas.com
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