Basic Mobile Phones

Mobile phones have been the lead story in ICT4D over the past three to four years. While their impact on people’s livelihoods and opportunities has undoubtedly been overhyped it remains true that, by enabling poor people to communicate more freely with their personal and livelihood related networks, the spread of mobile phones has transformed their environment and that of international development.

Channels

• Voice
• Voice to text / text to voice
• Interactive voice response
• Short Message (SMS)

Examples

Using mobile phones for voice conferencing between farmers enables sharing of information and discussion around agricultural problems. Using loudspeakers connected to the phone, the farmers hold meetings. This tool is used by an organization called BROSDI in Uganda. When a farmer wants a meeting they beep a BROSDI member who then phones them back. The conference enables input from all participants rather than through a third party. It also saves on travel costs and time.

Freedom Fone - "Mobile's answer to radio is the Freedom fone. Freedomfone gives users access to dial-up information and services over their mobile. Dubbed 'dial-up radio', the service will be invaluable in societies where many people own cellphones but draconian governments have restricted access to newspapers and the airwaves." Watch the video for further explanation.

Technobyte - An interactive voice service system for farmers which converts text to speech (SMS & Voice). This is particularly useful for illiterate and blind people.

FrontlineSMS - Open source communications hub for all kinds of data collection and monitoring. The complete system can be implemented just with a laptop and one mobile phone, which acts as an SMS gateway.
FrontlineSMS Medic is a project, which uses the Frontline SMS tool to coordinate hospital logistics. For example, mobile health workers are coordinated through this SMS messaging system. Another project called FrontlineSMS credit introduces a local mobile payment system. Implementing institutions will be able to provide a full range of customizable services, from savings and credit to insurance and payroll.

RapidSMS is a free and open-source framework for dynamic data collection, logistics coordination and communication, leveraging basic short message service (SMS) mobile phone technology.

The Open Mobile Consortium offers various free and open source tools around mobile phones.