The Many Uses of Mobiles

In this 50th issue of ICT Update, the multiple uses of mobile phones are featured. The issue describes mobile phone usage, including SMS (short message service), as a clear choice of communication methods in the global South.

The advantages of mobile usage include the ability to receive, usually free of charges, text messages. This SMS function will allow for automatically delivered messages to a large number of mobiles, something difficult to achieve with voice messages. "SMS is, therefore, an ideal way for organizations and businesses to reach their ...audience, whether they want to sell bank services, promote safe sex or share commodity prices, but especially if they want to get a message across to people with limited or no access to the internet." This includes farmers who are now in a position to receive accurate market information and communicate with other farmers on the possibility of exploring new markets and selling to bigger buyers as a group.

The issue reviews its history of reporting on information services to African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, particularly related to agriculture:

• "As early as November 2002…, Daniel Annerose described how the Senegalese company, Manobi, delivered market information to farmers. 'Manobi has developed a system that collects data in real time and makes use of internet and mobile technologies to follow the daily price fluctuations and deliveries of produce to markets'." The company is still delivering agricultural market information throughout West Africa, through the financial support of farmers.
• "...the Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE) realized that farmers …need to become part of the market supply chain. KACE helps to link farmers, companies and markets through a network of franchised market resource centres (MRCs). The centres provide KACE with up-to-date market data, which is then distributed via SMS to farmers. The MRCs also offer on-site internet, email and phone facilities."
• "Also in Kenya, DrumNet operates a network of information access points or 'info-kiosks' that offer marketing, financial and information services for farmers. Each info-kiosk is equipped with an internet connection, a computer and mobile phones, and is connected to a hub in Nairobi. There, information from around the country is aggregated in a central database and is then distributed to the info-kiosks and to the farmers by SMS." In East Africa, Farmers' Information Communication Management (FICOM) project began by supporting dairy farmers in Uganda, and FoodNet delivers market information via mobile phone and FM radio broadcasts.
• "In West Africa, BusyLab, a group of Ghanaian software developers, launched TradeNet (now known as Esoko), a service that allows farmers to send SMS messages advertising their products. The messages are published on the web and are sent via SMS to subscribers who may be interested in those products. The advantage of this service is that the information reaches a broad audience, encouraging cross-border trade between neighbouring countries and even other continents. The National Association of Agricultural Producer Organizations of Cote d'Ivoire (ANOPACI) also uses the TradeNet system and distributes market prices on radio and on information boards in local markets."

Health services via mobile include:

• The Praekelt Foundation of South Africa has developed a way to use the space available in 'please call me' (PCM) messages to deliver targeted health information via SocialTxt, which adds messages of up to 120 characters to fill the unused space in a PCM.
• "The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) has developed a device that holds a mobile phone in position on a microscope. Using the phone's camera function, it is possible to take a picture of a microscope slide (with a sample of malaria infected blood, for example) and then send it via MMS (multimedia messaging service) to a specialist laboratory for analysis and diagnosis. The laboratory then delivers the results to the same camera phone in the form of an SMS message."
  

Language-related initiatives include the Kenyan pilot Banana Information Line, which provided farmers with specific information when they needed it. The farmers could call a number and, via a voice-activated menu, listen to a recording giving the specific information they needed, in either English or Kiswahili.

Technology expansion includes the Village Telco project. This team has "developed a basic, low-cost wireless router - which they call a 'mesh potato' - into which customers can plug a POTS (plain old telephone service) telephone. The router connects to a local wireless network and the telephone signal is carried to a central hub, often in a nearby internet cafe. Customers can therefore use an ordinary telephone" and, further, develop their own local telephone network.

In Nigeria, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology is available through the ZittNet network. "Customers can buy a simple plug-and-play system, called 'VoIP in a box', for around US$50. They then plug it into their computer and connect to the network to call other ZittNet customers for free or buy pre-paid airtime vouchers to make use of the local mobile network to call fixed-lines and other mobile users.”

Connect Africa is setting up payphones in remote parts of Zambia through satellite telephone providers, "using zinc-air batteries, which are much cheaper and easier to maintain than normal lead-acid batteries", and means that the payphones can even serve areas where there is no main electricity supply.

The article points out that the "next major development in the use of mobile phones for agricultural and rural development will be the continued growth of 'smartphones'..." which can access the web over 3G (third generation) wireless networks, to provide greater bandwidth to deliver data and voice services and access the internet via local Wi-Fi networks. "A recent Unicef report showed that more than 7 million Nigerians are now browsing the web on their mobile phones. In Nigeria, the number of web pages accessed with Opera Mini, a mobile phone browser, increased by nearly 1700% between January and September 2008. But other figures from Opera Mini show that South Africa and Egypt lead the way in mobile web adoption in Africa, followed by Kenya and Nigeria." Small laptops known as netbooks are described as showing promise, and, as suggested here: "It would make sense, for example, if mobile phones and computers had compatible operating systems, allowing users to run the same software and applications on both devices. Integration of technology is surely the most sensible way to reach rural areas and connect with the millions of people that can make such a system economically viable."