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GSM payphones bring communications to rural Rwanda communities
MTN Rwanda says that in the past year, it has provided over 1,600 GSM based payphones for rural communities, bringing communications to areas that are often not served by landline phone networks, reports Cellular News. "MTN's drive is meant to increase teledensity in rural areas throughout its operations and put telecommunications within the reach of even those who cannot afford handsets. "In addition, this project has created many entrepreneurs who are either running the business themselves or creating employment for others in turn," says Yvonne Muthien, Group Executive: Corporate Affairs, MTN Group. Rural entrepreneurs rely on micro-financing assistance from locally-based lenders to purchase the Tuvugane payphone and start a personal business of selling airtime units to the local community. These entrepreneurs are located throughout the country for easy accessibility by the general public". Related projects: -- Mobile power - Many African phone owners make money by reselling airtime to their local communities. -- Bank gives beggars phones instead of cash - Grameen Bank, famous for pioneering micro-credit programs in Bangladesh, has launched a new idea to empower the poor: arming beggars with mobile phones so they can sell a roving service for cash. -- Coin operated mobile phones may help improve connectivity - Taxi and autorickshaw drivers and bus conductors could in future become mobile public call offices, according to a city inventor and technology. -- Community phones connect SA townships - The BBC reports on the introduction of community telephone shops by Vodacom, which is having a dramatic impact in the Cape Town area, where 40% of the people are unemployed and living conditions are cramped and crowded. -- Rickshaws connect India's poor - Shyam Telecom, which operates in the state of Rajasthan, has equipped a fleet of rickshaws with a mobile phone. Drivers pedal these mobile payphones throughout the state capital, Jaipur, and the surrounding countryside. -- Mobile phones for Uganda's poor - Based on the successful Grameen Village Phone Programme - The "phone ladies" of Bangladesh -, MTN Uganda officially launched “MTN villagePhone” this week. Men and women are encourage to take out a micro-loan - as little as US$230 to be repaid over a period of up to 12 months - for the MTN villagePhone equipment and use the cell phones to operate a business providing much needed communications services to their communities. |
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