cell phone is freedom

As some of you know, I work in mobile phone business publishing, and we run articles each issue on developing countries. I've found it fascinating being in Johannesburg and seeing just how many people have mobile phones. My mum's cleaning lady, who must be in her 50's and a technophobe, has one. I noticed that Sizwe Banzi is Dead was showing, and I picked up a copy of Madam and Eve's latest annual, something like "Madams of the Caribbean" and it struck me that in the apartheid era, mobile phones would have been an awesome subversive tool. And it would mean that an entire nation could be in touch with one another, undermining the divisions that PW Botha (and his predecessors) put in place. I think it would have been nigh on impossible to police because someone somewhere would be able to sell mobile phones, top-ups, connections, etc on the black market, so even if they wanted to force the population to register their phones, (or some other crazy control-freak plan), it wouldn't have worked.

Isn't it amazing how technology comes at just the right time ! ?

I wonder what it's like in places like N Korea and Sudan though ?