http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9149142
A useful summary of the effect of mobile phones on developing economies.

Neat article. Thanks.

> “Information makes markets work, and markets improve welfare,”

Thoughts like that makes one remember that working in IT may actually be beneficial.

the same reasons exist for teh fact that the gsm thing is helping more in africa than the last 40 years of aid. Farmers in remote places are more informed about the market price of goods, and less easy to exploit as a result.

> the gsm thing is helping more in africa than the last 40 years of aid

data?  how do you know or suspect this?

I spent some time on a train journey talking to a guy who works for a wildlife conservation charity, and who told me that he had been travelling back and fore to africa for the last 30 years.

I asked him about the positive effects of aid, he basically said "zilch".

I remembered reading an article about the gsm revolution in Africa when I had been in Tunisia about a year or two before (giving the specific example I give above) in an African magazine, and asked him about it. He described the effects of that technology as a "quantum leap". He gave the example of an employee they have in remote Tanzania who is now effectively 4 hours from medical help, not 20 as was previously the case. (He gets a mobile signal by standing in a certain spot in the back yard.)

So - a combination of an article in the african press, combined with direct information from someone who has spent enough time there that he ought to have a clue.

It's also quite well documented that the growth rate of the mobile industry is one of the highest in the world.

google "africa mobile phones" if you more stuff. there's a lot of info.

In India and Lanka they are now using CDMA for landphones at landphone tariffs. Not a total success story; in my village there was a massive queue to returnt them as reception was so bad you could receive calls but not make them.

I think I've mentioned elswehere that I've got DSL. Amazed me because I had just ptesumed I was too far out in the sticks for it ever to happen, but they're running DSL to vast chunks of the country. Sooner or later that will have a pretty good effect on growth (if only because it will attract expats to come and live here).

What are you doing in India?  I thought you were in the mid-east expatriating?

>“Information makes markets work, and markets
>improve welfare,”

y'know, I think you could just cut that down to "information improves welfare". I don't think the market is necessarily a necessity.

----"What are you doing in India?  I thought you were in the mid-east expatriating?"----

I'm in Lanka. Summer vacation.

Nice article, Stephen. Such article makes me feel good. Sincerely. It feels good when weaker section of the society of my country actually* gets benefited of such things and is just limited to rich and the prosperous. Thank you indeed.

You are vacations at Srilanka. I am going to India on 8th of september.

Enjoy your time! :)

Correction:

It feels good when weaker section of the society of my country actually* gets benefit of such things and is just not limited to rich and the prosperous.

Thanks!

It was a nice article.  To strawdog's point, it makes clear that not all of tech is web 2.0 BS.