Three BILLION dollaaaaaaarz

By on April 9, 2008 in News

Ok, not dollars, but people.

Yes, there are three billion GSM subscriptions. Officially. So reckons the trade body, 3G Americas.

Although they have negated to supply the name and winning photo of the person who was the 3,000,000,000th GSM subscriber. Bit of a shame.

Whenever I start thinking about the amount of people using GSM, I then start thinking just how many millions of people don’t actually have enough food to eat or clean water to drink.

Cellular News has more details.

(Thanks Mike!)

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Ewan is Founder and Editor of Mobile Industry Review. He writes about a wide variety of industry issues and is usually active on Twitter most days. You can read more about him or reach him with these details.
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  • http://www.sonuspr.com Patrick

    If there’s a prize going for the 3 billionth person Ewan … then it was me ;-)

  • Tom

    While it is true that access to proper sanitation and a regular quantity of food is still as big a problem as it has ever been, the causes have shifted from a worldwide shortfall in production to problems in the supply chain. One part of the solution is communication, and GSM has revolutionised communication. It is simple, it is worldwide, it is standard, and anyone with a GSM phone of the correct band can hop on a network with a SIM.

    So yes, mobile phones might seem like a convenience and a luxury to us in the rich part of the world, but it is having an impact in poorer parts of the world as well. If you’re interested, there are some excellent and very readable economic papers out there on the subject, although a URL escapes me at the moment.

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