Reading Reflection 10/30 – Mobile phones in Africa

This week’s readings are actually quite cheerful, at least these articles deliver a message – hope. I especially like the micro-mortgage solution that offered to ladies in Bangladesh. Phone-lady idea is really a brilliant one, it not only gives those women a chance to be financial-independent, helps them to support their families, it also spread out the seeds of phone-usage, makes communication easier to local people, and it eventually makes the big growth of mobile phones in the area.

From the materials of this course so far,  it’s delightful for me to know that In regions where there are no fixed landlines, cellphones have been hailed as an opportunity to leapfrog existing technology. And I believe that many in the industry predict that many Africans’ first experience of the internet will be via a cellphone.

Although there are some arguments and doubts about this type of cellphone-Internet would really create a digital-environment like the developed world. I think those points of views are quite arrogant and ignorant. We all understand that mobile phones can’t really compete with PCs with Internet connection, people can’t really create much content such as blogs or upload a home-made videos from their cell-phones easily. But like any market in the world, cell phone gets popular in poor areas simply because people there need it and it has a huge market. It is not like adding an extra fancy service on our DVR, it is a breakthrough and a jump basically from NOTHING.

The quick growing of mobile phones in Africa generally is a good news, but somehow it also raises up some concerns. Not to mentioned the network security issues here, how about polarization? Will the mass adoption of mobile phone makes some people’s situation  from developing areas even worse?It is easy to foresee that this mobile technology is getting better and more popular in the “lack-of-land phone & PC” lands, but there certainly will still be people who will be left behind the train due to varies of reasons, such as poverty, location, education and accessibility of the device. As one of the articles mentioned, government’s control is also playing a crucial part in the communication technology development. Will the sudden thrive of technology push some people even further from being “advanced”? I don’t expect to see the answer in the near future, but I cross my fingers to wish the technology can continue its development and benefit more people there.