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INSIDE AFRICA
Cell Phones in Africa
Aired March 8, 2008 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke, coming to you from Lagos, Nigeria this week for a special edition of INSIDE AFRICA. Today, we're going to be looking at the proliferation of cell phones across the African continent. This is a great example, for instance. In this store, we have a recharged (inaudible) for Globe, for CellTell, and also here we go one more -- NTN. We'll be looking at the effect of the cell phone revolution across the African continent, and the many ingenious ways in which cell phones are being used.
But what happens if you don't actually have a mobile? Perhaps you live out in a rural community, or you can't afford the expense of running (inaudible). Well, here in Nigeria -- no phone, no problem. As long as you can get to a mobile payphone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Spend an hour in Lagos, and you come to the conclusion that people really love their mobile phones. They're everywhere -- on billboards, in the market. And it's not unusual for people to have two or three cell phones with different companies. Even if you don't have your own mobile, you can use an al fresco (ph) option. Under one of the brightly colored umbrellas that line the road, you can pay a cell-phone vendor to use their mobile.
Shela Abidoe (ph) has probably one of the noisiest offices in Nigeria. On a busy street in Lagos, she sells mobile minutes on a specially designed telephone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).
OKE: Cell phone company CellTell has designed a mobile payphone that can be re-charged, send text, and keep track of profits (ph) made on calls.
Customers like Henry use the service.
HENRY OGUNLEYE, PAYPHONE CUSTOMER: In most cases, you might not need to have a lot of money with you. You can just program your cell to the amount you have in your pocket at that particular time.
OKE: It's possible to make a call for just 5 naira, which is about 4 cents, and significantly cheaper than normal cell phone rates.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know at times you hear, "Hello, (inaudible)? OK. I will call you back. But you know (inaudible) make use of your own cell phone, that call would have cost you about 30 naira, but this one will just cost you about five naira.
OKE (on camera): People are smart!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes! Yes!
OKE (voice over): Fine naira buys you about 10 seconds of talking time. At another payphone store, I tried to see how much talking I could do for five naira.
(on camera): OK. It's my auntie Boomie (ph). She works in Lagos.
Hello, Auntie. It's Femi. How are you?
That was it, she's gone. (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call me back.
OKE: Just call me back.
(voice over): It may not seem like very long, but according to payphone expert Sunny Ekhalume, cheap mobile phone access is improving lives across Africa.
SUNNY EKHALUME, PAYPHONE SPECIALIST: It has made a lot of difference, especially for people in the rural areas who cannot afford a phone, or even if they could afford one, they may not be able to recharge regularly.
OKE: And from a business perspective, cell phone vendors, who are mostly women, are making extra money.
(on camera): Who talks the most? The female customers or the male customers?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The female customers. Yes, the female customers. Because they like calling their friends, calling their boyfriends, (inaudible). Because, you know the phone call is cheap now, so they can talk more.
OKE (voice over): At four cents for 10 seconds, we can talk as long as we like.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, a double-edged sword. Mobile phones being used to spread messages of hate, and also being used to help fight a deadly disease. More coming up on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OKE: Making headlines around Africa this week: Kenya's parliament met for the first time since President Mwai Kikai and opposition leader Rail Odinga signed a power sharing deal. Mr. Kikai urged lawmakers to quickly pass the laws necessary to put the U.N.-brokered agreement into effect. It calls for the creation of a prime minister post, which Odinga is expected to fill. Parliament is scheduled to begin debating the legislation on Tuesday.
A U.S. submarine fired a missile targeting a suspected al-Qaeda operative in Somalia near the Kenyan border. The U.S. officials say it is unclear if he was killed in the strike. A senior U.S. official says the Kenyan-born man was believed to be heavily involved in al-Qaeda's East African operations.
And U.S. actress Drew Barrymore has donated $1 million to the World Food Program. The U.N. agency says the money will be used to feed thousands of children and improve scores in Kenya. Barrymore announced the donation to kick off the WFP's $3 billion Fill the Cup campaign. It aims to feed 59 million children in developing countries for a year.
Hello again from Lagos, Nigeria. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA's cell phone special. We are looking at the use of cell phones across the African continent.
We turn now to the use of cell phones during Kenya's political crisis. Everyone in Kenya has a cell phone, which makes perfect (inaudible) for spreading a message of hate following Kenya's disputed political election. David McKenzie has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We deal with them the way we understand (ph). Violence.
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Moses Mataria (ph) got this message on his phone during the worst of the violence. A stranger sent it, but it targeted Moses (inaudible) Kikuyu tribe. The message was meant to spread panic and push them out. But he works as a paramedic, and stayed.
Hundreds of thousands left from all major ethnic groups. They picked up their belongings and fled to their tribal homelands.
Many lived in fear of the messages that swirled through Kenya.
SMS, or short messaging service, is a convenient way of staying in touch without actually making a call. It's used for people to get together and for just plain fun. In the heights of the crisis, though, SMS was used as a tool of hate for the more than 11 million cell subscribers in Kenya.
SAMUEL POGHISIO, KENYAN INFORMATION MINISTESR: Those kinds of things are the ones ...
MCKENZIE: And the messages flew all the way up the chain.
(on camera): Did you receive any of these messages yourself?
POGHISIO: Yeah, I mean, I'm -- I have received hate messages myself, coming from people I don't know. You can just send messages even to the minister, send messages and hope to get away with that. That is the spirit of impunity that has characterized this period.
MCKENZIE: The government has vowed to crack down on perpetrators, but, according to industry insiders, they have an uphill battle.
MICHAEL JOSEPH, SAFARICOM CEO: These hate messages are something that we don't want to see. We don't like them, but there is very little you can do about it. Because, you know, you need to know where did the message come from, who sent the original message.
MCKENZIE: Despite the advanced technology, it's hard to trace an SMS to its source. Cell phone companies know that some of the messages came from outside the country. South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda were sources of some. Safaricom, the largest cell company in Kenya, has installed a filtering system that could be used to track hate messages. But it's not their core business.
JOSEPH: We're not a censorship bureau. We're not, you know -- we're a communications company, which has a responsibility and a license obligation to allow people to communicate.
And what constitutes a hate message? Kenyans are mad about cell phones and (inaudible) off-color joke from a stranger. Off-color? Yes. But illegal? Probably not.
The (inaudible) Safaricom's revolutionary cell banking system has allowed people to donate money to the displaced using their accounts, using this tool for good. But the memory of that time is still fresh:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really creates a sense of (inaudible), that there's something wrong going on here. (inaudible). It's like a fire in the forest. It was (inaudible), and then the bush fire will spread.
MCKENZIE: With more and more Kenyans getting cell phones, the very success of these network could make them targets to attack. It will be up to Kenyans to decide whether this essential device becomes a tool for hate or for hope.
David McKenzie, CNN, Nairobi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Turning now to a positive use of mobile phones in Africa. They are actually being used to help in the battle against HIV and AIDS. In South Africa, for instance, mobile phones are used to send patients reminders to take their medications and go to regular checkups. Nkepile Mabuse had that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A simple phone message that is saving lives. Mzobengo Zimzi (ph) has HIV/AIDS. He has been on antiretroviral drugs for nearly five years. He's one of about 8,000 HIV-positive South Africans who rely on text messages to remind them to take their medicine or see the doctor.
Research shows that almost a quarter of HIV-positive patients on the continent stop taking their antiretroviral drugs. Their bodies build up resistance to treatments, and ultimately they die.
Though most of the patients at this public clinic in Johannesburg are poor, nine out of 10 has a cell phone capable of receiving messages. Doctors say the phones can be lifesavers.
DR. IAN SANNE, HIV/AIDS EXPERT: To alert them if there is in fact an abnormality in the blood results or (inaudible) record that we need to ask them to come back to have, you know, further investigation.
MABUSE: The clinic credits the cell phone project with reducing the number of patients who have stopped taking their medicine from one in five to one in 50.
Of the estimated 5.5 million people living with HIV in this country, only 8,000 are currently being monitored by their cell phones. There's a plan already under way to expand the project so more people can be reached.
The clinic's database of 40,000 patients is funded with American aid money. A private firm, Praekelt Consulting, finances the mobile phone technology.
ROBIN MILER, PRAEKELT FOUNDATION/SOCIAL TXT: And if we start with patients who are on treatment now, and are able to help them to improve their adherence, improve their own health, I think that will be a good success story and a positive example to encourage other people to come on to treatment in the future.
MABUSE: The South African government admits it has inadequate means of tracking or monitoring the estimated 400,000 patients on its free antiretroviral drug program. But by embracing simple technology, this project has been able to prevent some people from dying unnecessarily of AIDS.
Nkepile Mabuse, CNN, Johannesburg.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: INSIDE AFRICA's mobile phone special continues after the break. We'll look at how mobile phones are making trade more efficient for African merchants and their customers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week: U.S.-based Chiquita Brands International is expanding European import operations from Africa. Chiquita says the deal with two companies in Angola and Mozambique will provide as much as 30 percent of the bananas it sells in Europe. Chiquita also says the new Africa operations will create about 6,000 jobs there. Planting is to begin this year. Exports are expected to start in 2010.
Rural areas in Tanzania are getting connected. Nokia is teaming up with Vodacom Tanzania for a trial run of its village connection service. The venture aims to give rural emerging markets a cost-effective mobile link to the rest of the world, in some cases via satellite. The service targets millions of rural Tanzanian households with about a five-year or monthly mobile phone budget.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA on location in noisy Lagos, Nigeria.
In many cases, mobile phones are making business more efficient across the continent. Merchants are able to lower their prices while they raise their profits, simply because they're getting better access to information. A company called Tradenet is tapping into this growing need. Christian Purefoy has this report for us from Ghana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than just a hill of beans. Doarte Kody (ph) and her mobile are taking on the global market. Software (inaudible) company called Tradenet is allowing her to sell her beans through her mobile. She can now advertise her goods, check the prices of her competitors, and close the deal with other uses from across the globe.
"The world is changing," she says, and she hopes this new technology will bring more business and more money.
She's been running these streets since she was 11, but now she only has to take a short code if she wants to know, say, the price of white maze or beans. And an immediate reply will give her the prices in markets across Ghana. And like shouting, it's free, but (inaudible) Tradenet, there are many challenges ahead.
She is illiterate, she says. So she has to call one of her children or a Tradenet agent to read the prices. Agents collect prices from 15 countries across Africa for Tradenet's thousands of users. That information is then sent to the Ghanaian developers, who are pioneering the software.
MICHAEL OCANSEY, TRADENET SOFTWARE DEVELOPER: It's great that we're behind it as Africans and doing it for Africans.
PUREFOY: And with deals that export Tradenet to Vietnam and Bangladesh, it's no longer just for Africans.
What Tradenet is proposing is to put not just this market, but the entire global market onto something as small as your mobile phone.
Christian Purefoy, CNN, Nima (ph) market, Ghana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: So why has Africa become such a booming market for mobile phones and what does it mean for the continent? These are two questions we're going to put to our technology expert. Coming up after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA's (inaudible) computer village Lagos, Nigeria.
Economists for Africa are forecasting a 7 percent growth rate. Part of that amazing growth is really down to the explosion in mobile phones telephone use. We take a look at that phenomenon with the help of technology blogger Emeka Okafor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EMEKA OKAFOR, TECHNOLOGY BLOGGER: The usage of mobile phones throughout the continent has exploded for a number of reasons. The prime one being that the existing telecommunications infrastructure lagged behind -- in fact, that's a huge understatement -- the humongous need for access via phones.
To give you a good example of that, if you look at country like Nigeria, for example, prior to the year 2000, you had about 500,000 subscriber lines, land-based lines primarily. In the intervening seven years, right up to last year, that grew from half a million to 30 million, and the growth was literally entirely wireless-based. So there was this pent-up demand that did exist and continues to exist that wasn't being served by the existing telecommunications companies. And cell phones neatly fell into that need and that gap.
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do Africans use cell phones differently than other people around the world? Do they rely on them differently?
OKAFOR: We're beginning to see throughout the continent the usage of cell phones as ATMs, banking facilities, that to a large extend you don't even have in the more developed parts of the world. I think the fact that you didn't have landlines, you didn't have ATMs as pervasive as they are in Europe or North America has spurred innovation to a much greater extent than it has even in the developed world.
So we're also beginning to see emerging use of cell phones in other areas that have to do with, you know, pricing for products that maybe farmers or fishermen would need to get a sense of what would be best for them from a marketing perspective. There are functions that are emerging also in the health arena:
So there is a slew of uses. It's more of a multifunctional device that it's actually live and in action now as opposed to something that people will use to such an effect down the road.
CLANCY: So it's getting exciting. And it's actually leading the world in some of the applications. There are many holes in Africa's infrastructure, and cell phone technology, is it being used to fill those gaps?
OKAFOR: It hasn't completely filled it in its entirety the telecommunications gap, but what is happening is the cell phones and the cell phone infrastructure is in a sense a substrate for infrastructure that didn't exist, and there are many aspects of infrastructure that are being built on top of it.
You know, for example, the cell phone infrastructure itself uses cell station towers that are used to transmit the signals, and these cell station towers are in need of a constant power supply. So there is quite a bit of conversation going on as to how the power needs of cell stations, cell station towers could be used to amplify unmet power needs, and how we could actually begin to layer on top of that infrastructure other needs (ph) as well.
CLANCY: Is it improving people's lives?
OKAFOR: It is improving people's lives. It's already improved business efficiency. Prior to the usage of cell phones to the extent that we have them, it was a lot harder to communicate for business. People had to travel because we didn't have direct line blanket coverage as one would want. People no longer feel as cut off (ph) as they did in the past. Cell phones are by no means a luxury item. It cuts across income ranges at (inaudible) levels. So, without a doubt, it has, and is continuing to, and it will amplify the quality of life that people have throughout the continent.
CLANCY: Thetimbuktuchronicles is the blog and Emeka Okafor is the blogger. Thank you very much for being with us on INSIDE AFRICA.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: And that's a look INSIDE AFRICA for this week. Signing off from Lagos, Nigeria, I'm Femi Oke. Take care.
END
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