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.

Dix jours après le violent séisme en Haïti, deux techniciens d’Inveneo, CIO Mark Summer et Andris Bjornson, sont arrivés sur place pour le déploiement d’un réseau wifi longue distance dont bénéficieront les organisations partenaires de NetHope situées à Port-au-Prince. Ce réseau permettra à ces organisations humanitaires d’accéder à l’Internet, d’utiliser la téléphonie VoIP, de collaborer et de partager l’information.

Après une catastrophe naturelle, la restauration de la communication est essentielle et plusieurs organismes comme Inveneo sont en train de mettre en place leurs propres solutions TIC afin de soutenir les efforts de la reconstruction en Haïti :

• Dons par SMS : Les opérateurs mobiles dans différents pays ont lancé une collecte de dons par SMS en faveur des organisations comme la Croix-Rouge qui viennent en aide aux victimes du séisme.
• S.O.S. par SMS : Suite à une collaboration entre plusieurs organisations y comprises Samasource, Ushahidi, FrontlineSMS, CrowdFlower et le départment d’Etat américain, les abonnés de Voilà, le principal opérateur de téléphonie mobile en Haïti, peuvent envoyer gratuitement un texte au 4636 pour appeler à l’aide.
• Recherche de Personnes : Google a mis en ligne un outil permettant de rechercher une personne ou de donner des informations sur une personne trouvée.
• Bénévolat Virtuel : Samasource recrute les bénévoles pour traduire les textes en créole vers l’anglais et The Extraordinaries a tenté d’utiliser les bénévoles pour identifier les personnes perdues dans les photos.
• Kijan mwen ka ede ou? : Comment est-ce que je peux vous aider ? Google vient de lancer son traducteur créole.

Qu’il soit une solution qui connecte les donateurs à l’étranger avec les organisations sur place, une solution qui connecte les bénévoles avec les actions humanitaires virtuelles, ou une solution qui permet aux gens de surmonter les barrières de la langue, les gens peuvent se mobiliser et répondre aux besoins locaux dans une façon informée et efficace grâce aux TIC. Malgré ses coordonnées géographiques, Haïti n’est surtout pas isolé.

With all the hype around the use of text messaging on mobile phones, like Google Trader or FrontlineSMS, it seems that the future of communication in Africa will be SMS.

Yet, Erik Hersman recently asked a great question: Should we be Building SMS or Internet Services for Africa?

David looking for an IP-based future

What a lot of people don’t realize is that for the first time, last year, mobile phones shipped to Africa with data service capabilities outnumbered the simple SMS-only phones that are so prevalent on the continent (Gartner 2009). Of course, this doesn’t mean that there will be a majority of IP accessible phone users immediately, but it is on its way.

Equally important to understand, and a point that increases the momentum of the mobile services over IP argument, is the fact that where there is mobile penetration, there is also available data services. This stands true in Uganda, where MTN says there is 92% GPRS coverage on their network. It’s even true in countries still trying to catch up, like Liberia, where though there are only islands of coverage, that coverage generally comes with data.

Expanding on Erik's observations, I see several trends that will have the next generation of African ICT solution developers crunching IP code, not developing SMS extensions:

High SMS costs

Currently, text messaging is one of the the most profitable activities for mobile network operators. An SMS costs them next to nothing to transport and deliver, yet those 140 characters are grossly expensive to the end user. Any type of automated SMS traffic (Twitter for example) would quickly bankrupt a company who attempted a large scale activity. This is stifling SMS creativity.

Ability to innovate

Mobile network operators continue to run very closed systems, only allowing very few applications to run directly on their networks. They do allow IP-based services however, with data plans. And with an Internet presence, entrepreneurs can also get international attention and investment, and attract computer users too.

Demand for video

Already, market IT entrepreneurs are selling video compression services so movies can be played on phones. As soon as there is a critical mass of data service phones and plans, expect to have movie services start offering daily downloads. Churches will lead (a sermon a day), and commerce will follow closely behind. Services like this are impossible with SMS, but easy with IP.

Like what you read? Then subscribe to ICTworks updates via RSS, Email, or Twitter

.

Last year the microblogging service Twitter, pulled its outbound SMS service from Africa. While only a few technology elite bemoaned its loss, for me it was a great disappointment. Twitter didn't see that the SMS carrier fees Twitter had to pay ($1,000 per account per year on average) to send SMS to African subscribers were worth future value of these users.

Now ArabCrunch reports that Twitter is in talks with Zain to bring outbound SMS alerts back to Africa for its subscribers. And that's a big deal!

Why Twitter Matters to African ICT Businesses

Twitter is an amazingly convenient way for businesses to reach their best customers, quickly, with breaking news. In the USA, its mainly a web application. In Africa, with its small Internet user based but explosive mobile phone penetration (greater than light bulbs!), Twitter's SMS return can herald a whole new way to get and keep customer attention with targeted messages. For example:

1. Daily specials and sales
2. Location updates of technicians or sales reps
3. Quick feedback to customer questions
4. Service outage or downtime updates
5. Virus or hacking threats

That's just the internal use of Twitter. Add in the sales possibilities around training clients how to use Twitter or upgrading them to hosted SMS options like Frontline SMS or RapidSMS and the return of Twitter to Africa could become a real boost to ICT adoption. Just look at its Facebook in Africa, Twitter already become a must-have for the tech elite and leading companies, and its just getting started. Expect it to rival Facebook due to is amazing ease of use and immediate gratification for both sender and receiver of the tweet.

Africa-Focused Twitter Experimentation

At Inveneo, we're experimenting with Twitter and hosted SMS options to develop solutions for the African market. Just this past weekend, we ran a real-time SMS feedback demo at Maker Faire Africa, using Frontline SMS and Twitter. Of course, to keep up with our ideas, be sure to subscribe to:

• Inveneo on Twitter
• ICTworks on Twitter

And if you have suggestions for future Twitter and SMS experiments, please let us know. We're always interested in mixing SMS and web-based technologies to find African business opportunities.

Hat tip to Appfrica

I've very excited about Maker Farie Africa, a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and invention. Taking place this weekend at the AITI KACE in Accra, Ghana, the event promises to be a watershed moment for African inventiveness.

I'll be there looking for new and exciting business and technical opportunities to share, as well as manning the Inveneo stand. We'll be displaying our own hacks - an SMS-based conference feedback system and on-demand radio station.

SMS Conference Feedback

The real-time SMS-based conference feedback system allows attendees to make comments about featured projects, respond to speakers, and discuss their favorite inventions using text messages sent from their mobile phones. All appropriate messages will be displayed on a monitor at the Inveneo booth for the public to view, and via Twitter, the social networking website. You can follow the conference on the Inveneo Twitter feed.

SMS On-Demand Radio Station

Inveneo will also be taking SMS song requests for a low-powered FM-channel radio broadcast to conference attendees. This demonstration shows how Inveneo technology could be used to make local radio possible in rural and remote areas across Africa. Together the demonstrations show how ICTs can enable and expand communications across under-served communities around the world.

If you're around, please be sure to stop by, or give a call on 0265 24 43 24

Everyone knows how SMS works - you can send an email to one other person. And there are SMS aggreators like FrontlineSMS that allow you to send text messages to multiple people. But now we have RapidSMS, which promises to take SMS text messaging to a whole new level.

RapidSMS

RapidSMS is an open-source framework for dynamic SMS communication developed by Matt Berg, the UNICEF Innovation Team, and a core team of volunteer programmers (with a little help from Inveneo).

Developed over the past year, in the field and in code sprints, RapidSMS promises to be an innovative platform for SMS-based solutions using server-side logic.

RapidResponse

The first solution, RapidResponse, is a unified mHealth malnutrition monitoring platform that includes screening for malaria and diarrhea - major killers of children under 5 years old in Africa. Here is a great video on the RapidResponse benefits:

Jokko

Tostan has rolled out their own RapidSMS soltion, according to MobileActive. In a year-long pilot with UNICEF, several Senegalese communities are using "Jokko" as a low-cost system to encourage group decision-making in the villages.

Jokko utilizes the RapidSMS functionality dubbed 'SMSForum, as MobileActive explains:

Joining the Jokko community

SMSForum allows community members to access a server in the Tostan office by sending their text to a “magic number”. This number feeds directly into the server or computer which then forward the SMS to a group of community members phones.

The platform supports easy and dynamic creation of multiple groups of people. For example, one village  has created a discussion group exclusively for youth. The basics of this system work much like a group list for text-messaging, however, the sender is only charged for the cost of one local text message. The cost of text messages sent to the “magic number” are covered by the administrator, in this case Tostan.

Innovation Opportunity

Now let us take these examples and think of new applications for RapidSMS. Personally, I think the SMSForum functionality is quite empowering. I can see self-assigned groups starting up, much like a listerv or Yahoo Groups and Google Groups, but all SMS-based.

This would be great for both development projects as well as commercial enterprises. Make the inbound SMS a premium short code and add advertising to the outbound SMS and you could recover costs or even make a small profit on such a system for general community use.

But enough of my ideas. What are yours?

I'm very excited to see that Google is taking a serious interest in Africa. From offices in South Africa and Kenya, to an open call for Africans to expand Google Maps across the continent, they're serious about actually testing and rolling out services directly targeted to Africans. And now they've outdone even this level of engagement.

With the explosive growth of mobile phone usage (but not always smart phones), Google is looking at brining the power of the web to SMS users. And they've just rolled out Google SMS for Uganda, a suite of mobile applications which will allow people to access information, via SMS, on a diverse number of topics

• 6001: Google SMS Tips - Health tips, ClinicFinder, Farmer’s Friend (agriculture tips & weather)
• 6006: Google SMS Search - News, sports scores, stock quotes, horoscope, glossary, currency converter, religious texts, translation, flights, Q&A, calculator, and local time
• 6007: Google Trader Buy and sell on your mobile. Use Google Trader to find anything that you need to have, or want to sell or trade

While Google is particularly excited about Google SMS Tips, an SMS-based query-and-answer service, I'm thinking that Google Trader is going to be the killer app. I see a blossoming of person-to-person sales of all manner of products and services, that will quickly also absorb the nascent SMS-based agricultural pricing, becoming something of an African Craigslist.

And while the businessman in me is interested to see what items sell the most and the most profitably, the arm-chair sociologist wonders what search terms said items will be organized around - will they be anything you'd expect or will Ugandans organize their lives on whole other terms.