Page:A Review of the Open Educational Resources Movement.pdf/82

 consideration of mobile phones or hybrid handheld devices as a platform for delivering educational materials and services deserves a high priority. To the extent that PC’sPCs [sic] are required or desirable, at least for rural areas, venues with fixed wireless broadband networks should be sought out or established.

As suggested above, a number of factors are required to create an enabling environment suitable for affordable broadband access, especially in rural areas. A good starting screen would be reliable electrical grids, available in much of Latin America, in much of China, in some Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam, and in South Africa; in other regions, national or subnational grids need to be examined separately (Indian states vary significantly in the quality of their electrical supply). Another important indicator is mobile phone coverage, which reaches close to or above 90 percent of the population in many developing countries: There are South Africa (96 percent), Botswana (85 percent), and Senegal (85 percent) in Africa; many countries in Latin America, for example Argentina (95 percent) Chile (99 percent), Columbia (94 percent), Ecuador (88 percent), El Salvador (86 percent), Mexico (86 percent), Venezuela (90 percent); and a few in Asia, Thailand (92 percent), Indonesia (85 percent), Cambodia (87 percent), and Malaysia (96 percent). Most countries in North Africa and some in the Middle East have good coverage, too: Algeria (84 percent), Egypt (91 percent), Morocco (95 percent), and Jordan (99 percent). Coverage in larger countries is usually lower (73 percent in China, 68 percent in Brazil, 78 percent in Russia, 41 percent in India) and will vary from province or state to state. The existence of strong competition among both broadband and mobile phone providers is perhaps the best indicator that coverage will expand, costs will decline, and new technologies and services will be rapidly incorporated. A compelling illustration of this is the difference in phone density between the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has six mobile operators, and Ethiopia, an equally poor country with only a single operator: The Congo has thirteen times the phone density of Ethiopia.

A decade ago, mobile telephony was the new entrant in developing countries, often resisted by the legacy wireline telcos and governments closely allied with them. Now mobile carriers (and many governments) are resisting still newer technologies such as VOIP and fixed wireless. VOIP is still illegal in many developing countries, although there is widespread private usage and the trend is toward legalization, and many countries have not assigned frequencies for Wi-Max or VSAT deployments. A few countries are notable for the creativity of the mobile companies operating there, especially in introducing business