Stephanie has this great article looking into the impact of mobile phones in emerging markets. Emerging markets are a large part of the book I’m working on, since the numbers of folks who will take the next billion phones* who are from India, China, or Afica should make us wake up to the impending (already happening?) global and local social and economic impact.
Link: Keitai / Alex, Pig, GSM and the Digital Divide.
One of the topics I find the most fascinating in mobile was again in the news yesterday with the imminent arrival of the 2 billion-th GSM subscriber—mostly due to astronomically high subscriber numbers in emerging markets.
*Stephanie, I think we are past 2B already, and 4B is already expected by 2010
The GSM counter seems to indicate we’re just past 2 billion–but I think the next billion will come pretty fast–at least that’s what Motorola and Nokia seem to be counting on with their sub$100 models.
http://www.motorola.com/3gsm/pdf/moto_connecting_nextbillion_3gsm.pdf (Motorola white paper/report)
then there’s Ericsson’s view which is quite original
http://www.ericsson.com/technology/whitepapers/wp_3041_cfa_a.pdf (connect the next billion through economical GSM adoption)
http://www.gsmworld.com/index.shtml (GSM counter)