Title: Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas: The Latin American perspective
Authors: Lisa M Cespedes and Franz J Martin
Source: i4d (Information For Development), January - March 2010
Publisher: Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
Date (accessed): 02/06/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Mobile phones offer individuals in rural populations the ability to access and interact with information services and databases.
Consider the numerous ways in which mobile telephony facilitates every day endeavours in addition to offering phone calls and text messaging. The technologies and applications vary from the developed areas to the developing regions, however, people in the most remote and marginalised places of the world are also benefiting greatly from the opportunities that the technology offers to improve their social and economic conditions.
There are 179 million people using mobile phones in Latin America; 82% of those users browse the Internet, 73% send text messages, and 55% are transferring data in different ways1. As a result of the expansion of mobile infrastructure and relatively affordable prices, the use of mobile telephony increasingly takes part of the everyday life of many rural families. As an example, in countries such as Peru, only 0.01% of rural households have access to the Internet while 36.5% have a mobile phone. In Chile, the penetration of mobile telephony is 94.7%.