Guardian Weekly

Article

A special report for World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, published as a Guardian Weekly supplement titled ‘Switching On: Connecting the World’, examines how developing countries are leapfrogging industrialised nations in adopting newer mobile technologies — citing mobile banking use in the Philippines, where more than 4 million people used phones as virtual wallets, far outpacing adoption in the US or UK. It also covers mobile networks’ resilience in disasters, noting how quickly cellular service was restored after Hurricane Katrina, and presents ITU data comparing mobile subscription rates per 100 inhabitants across dozens of countries worldwide.