CHAPTER 1.2 Mobile Telephony: A Critical Enabler of Networked Readiness? THIERRY GEIGER, World Economic Forum

Mobile telephony occupies a special place among the various information and communication technologies (ICT) that have emerged in recent decades, in terms of both its stellar diffusion and its impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. In particular, mobile communications penetration has boomed in developing countries, helping them to compensate for an often underdeveloped and flawed fixed telephony infrastructure and offering a promising tool to increasingly lift their citizens out of poverty and improve the efficiency of their markets and economies. The total number of mobile telephone subscribers in the developing world is more than twice that of advanced economies.1 This, as pointed out by Kalil,2 can be explained by a number of factors, including the rela