The BBC reports from the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on the chances of mobile phones being the ideal tool for the job.



The reasons why mobile phones can do it:



1. Almost three-fourth of the world’s population live in areas already covered by mobile networks.

2. Cheaper and better handsets are already on the way. Motorola’s C113 and C113A will cost only $30 or abouts.

3. Innovative services will push the usage of mobiles: like the Sharedphone scheme in South Africa under which handsets become mobile payphones. This is similar to the Grameen phone system in Bangladesh.

4. Lots of basic e-governance and e-payments services are easily portable to the mobile handsets. More services mean more usage.



The only challenge: How can we make the mobile phone into a tool for e-learning?



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