ICTworks by Inveneo

Are smartphones to advanced for the rural poor? That's the idea that Reuters says is the case for India:

"What customers want right now in India is good quality voice calls and basic data services that do not require a 3G network yet," said Sigve Brekke, Asia head of Telenor (Fornebu, Norway), which sat out of India's recently completed 3G license auction.

What is a farmer working on the fields in India going to do with high-speed Internet access? He is more likely to need information about crop prices, which we can easily send over existing networks.

But what about Africa? Are smartphones just for the rich and techno-elite, or can 4G networks really offer in-demand services to everyone? What's your opinion?

Safaricom will begin a technical trial of the 4G (fourth generation) technology on its network within the next two months. The roll out of the next generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology (4G) will be carried out Huawei Technologies. The two companies signed a three year strategic partnership under which Safaricom selected Huawei as its vendor of choice for the supply of its core network requirements, and roll out the 4G network at a cost of KES12bn.

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said once the 4G network becomes operational, Safaricom customers will be able to enjoy high speeds of 600megabit per seconds or 1.5 gigabit per seconds in both downloads and uploads.

The new technology will enable Safaricom to deliver a combination of services like data, voice, and video and download services like iTunes which will be billed through a different charging system.

He said in the next two years the company will overhaul its current system to march the precepts of the LTE technology .The first phase will include installation of the operating system for the prepaid system, followed by upgrading of the postpaid system which will later will include converging both systems to have one billing system.