Sell Phones

I mentioned the other day that I'd read an interesting article, but wasn't sure that I had anything useful to say about it. Well, I don't -- but I wanted to point out the article, anyway. It's Can The Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?, from the New York Times. Basically, the answer is, yes it can, if you think of it not as a me to you communication device but as a communications hub.

For example: Towns where one person buys a phone and rents out its use to others as needed.
For example: sending money to someone. Buy a phone card, call the person who owns the phone in the town where you're sending the money, tell them the code on the card; they put the value of it on their phone, then hand the cash (minus a fee) to whomever you're sending the money to.
For example: Got to walk for two hours to see the doctor...who may not be there? Call the town, see if the doctor is in that day before you trudge all that way.
For example: Selling fish in Vietnam? Rather than getting paid the next time you come to town, get paid on your phone right away - then transfer the value of the card out again.

I'm not an anthropologist, and I find even the concept of anthropology to be deathly boring lecture hall dull -- but this is fascinating stuff.