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Used phones drive Third World wireless boom

With the number of cell phones in use worldwide hitting 2.5 billion and rising, recycled phones are playing a growing role in the spread of wireless communications across the developing world, where land lines can be costly or unavailable. While most used phones in this country still land in a drawer or the trash, a rising number are finding their way to places like Bolivia, Jamaica, Kenya, Ukraine or Yemen, with more than half of them coming from a company named ReCellular Inc.

Refurbished cell phones are opening doors to wireless communication in much of the developing world, where a new cell phone might otherwise be prohibitively expensive, Blumberg said. "Sometimes, you have someone in a village who has a cell phone and rents out time," he said. In the U.S., service providers offer cell phones at big discounts and make their money off service contracts or sale of minutes. In the rest of the world, customers generally pay the full retail price, then separately sign up for service.

MSNBC Technology News

Posted by | Sun, Oct 29, 2006 - 07:58 PM