Jeroen Hellingman (Mailing List Account) wrote:
In five years time, I've seen telephone coverage in my wife's home island in the Philippines raise from almost nothing (the nearest phone was a six kilometer walk from her home; at the beach you had to give them one day notice if you wanted to pay by creditcard,
It is the same in Africa. My sister in Nigeria used to need a four-hour trip by motorbike to get to the nearest phone (about five years ago). Now she has a satellite phone and GSM coverage starts less than 15 km from where she lives. Which means that she probably will have GSM coverage somewhere next year. Oh, and by the way, she is in need of affordable science and math textbooks for teaching purposes. Having Shakespeare is all nice and dandy, but literature is not the foremost education priority over there. Last time I checked there weren't any available through Gutenberg at the pretty basic level they are needed. Regards, Walter