Sunday, January 28, 2007

Mobile Phones Changing Lives

The Associated Press yesterday featured a terrific story about how mobile phones are changing lives -- and national GDPs -- in developing countries. It's highly recommended.

As service charges and handset prices have plunged and coverage areas have expanded, cellphone subscriptions in the developing world have surged fivefold since 2000, to 1.4 billion at the end of 2005, according to the U.N. International Telecommunication Union. That's nearly double the 800 million in advanced economies.

Those are huge numbers. But the money quote, in my humble view, comes from the woman in Bangladesh, where the per capita income in 2004 was less than $500 U.S.

". . .now I have some money with (which) I can expand my business."

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