Michael, 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, such that an employ could go to town to phone the CC company) to a much higher level -- everybody seems to be carrying cell phones now, and the entire province is dotted with telephone poles. You can have pre-paid cards starting as low as 35 cents, and you can actually send even smaller amounts of load by text message. I single text message is 2 cents, and far more popular than actual phone calls, that are very expensive at 15 cents a minute. I've taken up an item on the 100 dollar laptop on my website, http://www.bohol.ph/, but $100 is more than a month income for most families in Bohol. On the other hand, sending refurbished computers from here to schools in the Philippines is more expensive -- I send about 10, with mixed success. Some schools didn't have light fixtures, so could only use them at day time. ..., and ants get everywhere... Jeroen. Michael Hart wrote:
Let's not forget that 50% of the world doesn't even have phone service if any kind at all, much less narrow or broadband Intneret.
I'm still targeting the world from the bottom up, much like the $100 laptop that we all hope for, inexpensive cellphone service, etc.