It is very interesting to follow this conversation...but it mainly focuses on the economic aspects. You should also consider the social impacts created by the use of mobile phones. I don't think technology is neutral per se because it is already strongly linked with good or bad attributes in our mind depending on one's perspective. Everything that has an impact on your life becomes a subject automatically and can't stay neutral. After a while it will become an essential part of the culture and be either looked at in a positive or negative way so one should really consider the effects before implementing a project. Here are two interesting presentations from Hsain Ilahiane, Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology of the Iowa State University about his research on ICT in rural Morocco: [url]http://www.public.iastate.edu/~hsain/Research/Mobile%20Phones,%20Global…] [url]http://www.public.iastate.edu/~hsain/Research/Impacts%20of%20ICTs%20in%…]

Hi, I'm Anna-Maria, a student of cultural anthropology. But right now I'm a volunteer at FAO for 6 months. Here I got involved in different activities on knowledge exchange, especially the e-agriculture.org platform. Updating the news and events section, working on the e-agriculture youtube account and answering incoming mail are some of my daily activities. Mobile phone use for rural development is a new topic for me, so I'm really looking forward to learning from all of your experiences. I'm especially interested in the cultural impact mobile telephony has on locals and their social structure. Curious to hear from you:)