The $100 smartphone price barrier is broken! Nokia recently announced the 2730 Classic and Synchronica released the MessagePhone. Both mobile phones will retail for $100 or less across the developing world.

Price is also the major selling point for the Vodaphone 150, a self-proclaimed "world's cheapest mobile phone". Its only $15. But it only supports SMS and voice. Which brings us to an interesting question:

Which is better: price or functionality?

You could argue that its better to have something, even a stripped down $15 mobile phone, than nothing. But is price really the only factor? Even for the poorest, I would argue not. Consider the $35 Simu ya Solar which has its own solar panel, a perfect phone charging solution.

In addition, Ken Banks points out the "emerging market" handset trap with these low-end phones:

The prices may have changed, but functionality has largely stagnated. You couldn’t browse the web on the Motorola in 2005, nor the ZTE in 2008, and today you’d have the same problem on the Vodafone 150. You can’t download applications onto any of them, either. They all have monochrome screens and look pretty-much-the-same despite having a five year gap between them. Very little has changed other than price

More mobile phone functionality, please

Voice is the killer mobile phone application - bar none. Next up, SMS is the most popular application - bust should it continue to hold that title? For multiple reasons, I believe that Africa's mobile phone future is IP based, not SMS. To gain, IP needs data enabled phones. Handsets like the 2730 and the MessagePhone.

So while I applaud Vodaphone for cutting costs, might all this gone a bit too far? Could we have innovation on functionality at a higher price point? I could see a $50 smartphone having greater impact than a $15 voice/SMS phone.

A $50 smartphone would drive data usage out to rural areas now limited to SMS-only. It would also allow for much greater opportunities by all the actors involves - rural communities and the business and development organizations that want to reach them.

A $50 smartphone would also challenge the high costs of smartphones in the developed world. A South to North innovation we all could applaud.

What is the impact of ICT on the developing world? Will expanded Internet access bring a revolution in business revenues and social advancement? How can ICT implementers translate technology headlines into practical, actionable activity?

With ICTworks we want to share expertise in sustainable ICTs for the developing world and we need your help. We need you to Guest Post with your ideas, opinions, and know-how.

Look, I'm on ICTworks!

How to Guest Post on ICTworks

1. See tweet, gadget, or article that makes you think?
2. Email us your thoughts as a short article
3. Don;t worry about spelling or grammar - we don't!
4. We'll publish the Guest Post on ICTworks
5. You revel in the fame and glory of ICTworks authorship

Yes, its that's simple! So what are you waiting for? Look for ideas that excite you and then email us today!

At the 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of African Union, Bingu wa Mutharika, the African Union (AU) chairperson, has called upon member countries to take information and communication technologies seriously.

I could not agree more. I salute African Union's call to truly embrace ICT as a facilitator of development and progress across all African nations. I also call on the African Union to follow up its declaration with the following two changes across its membership:

1. Open and Competitive ICT Markets

Too many African countries artificially constrain the ICT sector with unreasonably high fees, unnecessary regulation, and outright corruption, if they let ICT competition take place. Often they do not. In too many countries, the incumbent telco is given every advantage to suppress new entrants and maintain high prices with poor service. The result is striking. The entire African continent - home to over 50 countries - has fewer Internet users than France alone.

2. Universal Service Fees used for Universal Access

Many African countries impose a Universal Service Fee on ICT usage. These fees generate millions of dollars in revenue each year. Yet many rural Africans are still waiting to see any impact from USF projects in their areas. At the same time, the private sector, which contributes the majority of the funds, is excluded from decision making.

The Time to Act is Now

Africa is poised for rapid growth, facilitated by information and communication technologies - and industry in itself. ICT is already said to be Nigeria's 2nd largest industry. And we have sucessful models to follow.

Let us unleash that industry, remove its regulatory shackles, and let it bring Africa into the modern world.

Don't forget that we're having a Twitter Chat today. We want to explore the impact of social networking technologies on businesses and communities in the developing world with our guides: ICTworks, Michael Downey, and Chloe Feinberg.

1. Social networking is driving ICT adoption, but which tools, why, and to what extent?
2. How can social networking increase donor, implementer, recipient participation in development?
3. What are the gaps and limitations in social networking engagement - where doesn't it work?

We'll start at 12-noon Eastern Time ( noon worldwide ) with introductions, then move into the discussion, using the #ICT4D hashtag in Twitter.

For those not on Twitter, you can watch the action via the handy embed below or this separate webpage:

For those new to Twitter Chats, its a freewheeling conversation around our central questions on the Twitter platform. Our hope is to learn from each other and find ways we can increase our impact using social media.

We'll archive the Chat too, in case you miss out.

Be sure to follow ICTworks on Twitter and RSVP today!

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As we've already discussed, Facebook is driving ICT adoption in Africa. Just look at the amazing statistic that Moses Kemibaro found: 2 million Kenyans are registered with Facebook, 80% of all Kenyan Internet users.

Facebook on Mobile Phones

What's even more amazing about Facebook statistics in Africa is that much of that usage is on mobile phones. A recent Opera Mini report looked at their top 10 African countries, and found that with their users, Facebook is the most popular site in 6 out of 10 countries and the #2 site in three of the countries where it is not #1.

And that dominance is when mobile Internet users are constrained by limited and expensive data plans. Now Facebook is about to leap ahead on mobile phones with a free version of its site.

Facebook Zero

For all those that want to visit Facebook, but are constrained by download caps, I give you Facebook Zero. As TechCrunch reports:

It's basically a text-only version of the Facebook service that carriers can offer to their subscribers at no charge. If a user then decides to switch from text-only to multimedia (e.g. view photos from their friends), mobile operators can start charging them for ‘premium’ data service.

This system is apparently called zero-rated pages, and allows operators to use a trimmed down version of a web application as a sort of teaser, driving the adoption of certain mobile services or apps, and more data usage revenue down the line.

Facebook Zero as web chang’aa

Now what happens when you make Africa's most popular website free to access on mobile phones? You will have an explosion in web use beyond all imagination. The charts on Facebook adoption will stop being slopes and become straight lines - straight up.

And like chang’aa, jobs will be lost, marriages will break up, and all manner of parents and elders will claim its a blight on the land. Unlike actual chang’aa, Facebook Zero will also have a positive effect - its gonna increase demand for full Internet services and the computers that can support it.

All those Facebook users will want news, ecommerce, employment, and education websites, in addition to social networking. Yes, mobile phones will lead in usage by far. But make no mistake, those that get addicted to Facebook on mobiles will want the full screen upgrade - for Facebook and all the other Internet destinations. And they'll want it. Right. About. Now.

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn - these social networking technologies are driving ICT adoption worldwide. They're also increasing revenues and efficiencies in leading American and European companies.

But what's the impact, if any, of social networking technologies on businesses and communities in the developing world? Are they really driving ICT adoption and business revenues in rural areas? Or does Facebook, Twitter, and the like just reinforce the techno-elite echo chamber - bypassing the Global South completely?

Join us for the February #ICT4D Twitter Chat, where we'll explore these vital questions with our guides: ICTworks, Michael Downey, and Chloe Feinberg.

We'll start at 12-noon Eastern Time (noon worldwide) with introductions, then move into the discussion, using the #ICT4D hashtag in Twitter. Be sure to RSVP here.

• Handy Re-Tweet
  Feb #ICT4D Twitter Chat:
  Social Networking 4 Development -
  Feb 26 @ 12:00/noon Eastern -
  RSVP: http://ow.ly/18WdH

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For those new to Twitter Chats, its a freewheeling conversation around our central questions on the Twitter platform. Our hope is to learn from each other and find ways we can increase our impact using social media.

We'll archive the Chat too, in case you miss out.

Be sure to follow ICTworks on Twitter and RSVP today!

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Back when Geekcorps was deploying Internet connectivity to rural radio stations in Mali - literally beyond Timbuktu - we opted for solid-state drives (also called SSD or flash drives) in our custom built computers to ruggedize them. The threat of dust was just too great to use spinning media. The pervasive Saharan sand would eat regular hard drives.

But outside of this rare, harsh location, do you really need a solid-state drive?

Now that I'm at Inveneo, I've noticed we're no longer recommending solid-state hard drives in the majority of our deployments. We’re finding that hard disk drives (HDD or hard drives) can stand up to the unforgiving environment in rural areas much better than we expect.

We’re thinking that hard disk drives are now much more rugged thanks to the growth in laptop sales. Laptops present a very unforgiving use case to hard disk drives – constant shocks from dropping, frequent power changes, and high-heat operation inside small laptop form factors. The changes in hard disk drive design for laptops have made them much more durable in desktops as well.

The result is a lower storage media cost for ICT implementations in the developing world. Hard disk drives cost much less than solid-state memory, though the costs for both are constantly dropping.

I hear much talk about how the Nigerian information and communication technology industry is the 2nd largest industry in Nigeria, right behind Oil and Gas, but I don't believe it. Why? Because if ICT were really such a large part of Nigerian economy, we'd hear about a thriving venture capital community that's support it.

Who is investing in ICT?

Who are the Nigerian Venture Capitalists?

Recently on the Naija IT Professionals newsgroup, we were presented with a list of Nigerian venture capital companies. But in researching the VC's Internet footprint, I only found these to be viable organizations:

• African Capital Alliance
• Bank of Industry, Nigeria
• Areos Capital
• First Funds
• AfriCap
• AfricInvest
• Unique Venture Capital

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Do any Nigerian Venture Capitalists focus on ICT?

One key aspect of Silicon Valley's dominance of the ICT sector, in everything from hardware, to software, to services, is the tight interplay between VC's and the surrounding technology companies. VC's provide the rick and patient capital that helps two college students go from garage fiddling to Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Microsoft, and Google.

Yet, if we look at the Nigerian ICT landscape, there are few, if any standout VC's. I checked each organization's portfolio from those listed above, I didn't see a focus on the ICT industry, or even the mention of ICT company investments.

No VC's? Then no large-scale ICT industry

Now why does this matter? Couldn't the Nigerian government, funders of some much else, also become the venture capitalists? As Paul Graham notes in his How to Be Silicon Valley post, VC's do matter more than government:

Do you really need the rich people? Wouldn't it work to have the government invest in the nerds? No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. They tend to have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. This (a) helps them pick the right startups, and (b) means they can supply advice and connections as well as money. And the fact that they have a personal stake in the outcome makes them really pay attention.

Bureaucrats by their nature are the exact opposite sort of people from startup investors. The idea of them making startup investments is comic. It would be like mathematicians running Vogue-- or perhaps more accurately, Vogue editors running a math journal.

So in the end, I don't believe that ICT is the 2nd largest in Nigeria. If there are no high-profile VC's, there can't be the Silicon Valley that can spawn a sizable technology ecosystem. In fact, how can Nigeria's technology industry be of any decent size when the World bank says that Sudan and Zimbabwe have higher Internet penetration than Nigeria?

If you want to send computers or other technology hardware to Africa, how do you do it? You can't just walk down the to Post Office and put a stamp on the outside of the computer box and mail it to Nigeria. Okay, so you could, but you'd have many problems.

First, your package might make it to a regional post office in the country, but it would take ages and when it arrived, the recipient would have to pay whatever customs and duties the local postmaster thought was due on the equipment. That might work for a random present, but isn't the best way to ship equipment to Africa.

At Inveneo, we've learned the hard way that getting information and communication technology equipment to different countries in Africa can be a challenge, but there is a method to the freight forwarder madness. By using tools like a Shipper's Letter of Instruction, in addition to the Commercial Invoice, and requiring a Form M for Nigerian shipments, we've made the shipment of technology equipment to Africa an easy process.

And we've even made a video to explain the process:

Like Glenn Stewart and Colm Pelow say, the equipment goes via air freight, riding in the same planes that haul people from the USA to Africa. But unlike your luggage, air freight cargo doesn't get delivered to the Arrivals baggage claim at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. It goes to the customs clearinghouse for review and import duty payment. From there, a local shipping agent can retrieve your equipment and have it delivered to the implementation site.

But why worry about all this hassle? Work with an Inveneo Certified ICT Partner, and focus on your implementation, not equipment importation.

Learn more about shipping - subscribe to ICTworks via RSS, Email, Twitter, or Facebook

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When people talk of the many languages of Africa, and need for localized content, they're often thinking about English, French, Kiswalhili, or Xhosa.

But in the technology space we have our own languages in addition to these. We have languages of hardware and networking, from servers, to routers, to nodes and bridges, to the languages of code, like PHP, Java, and C++.

Thanks to Jonathan Gosier, we now know the popularity of each programming language in Africa with this handy chart:

Now why would it matter to a business that Java is way more popular than J2ME? There is business opportunity in this variability. If you are a big company, you should try to dominate the Java and PHP market, but if your small, walk away from the popular languages. You'll not beat the big players at their own game.

Yet a new entrant who is willing to gamble on Python or Ruby can make a name for themselves before the big players know what happened. Also, with unique skills, you can price your services at a premium to others, making your company much more profitable. See Apple as a great example.

Just be sure that if you choose one language to focus on, you keep some skills in several. This will allow you to translate between them as needed, matching the right software language to the job.

Get more business opportunities - subscribe to ICTworks via RSS, Email, Twitter, or Facebook

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