The potential of mobile telephony to transform Africa will only be achieved if the development of other infrastructure keeps pace, says a study. Sounds like an academic’s typical conclusion, but this item is a reminder that mhealth can’t help in isolation. Mobile phones no silver bullet for Africa, says study. SciDevNet.
UPDATE Sun 12th: Readers interested in this topic may also like to see: Telehealth Services in the Context of Zambia, a Developing Country
Closer to home
In the UK we have areas where this is also a threat. In some rural areas the satellite GPS, mobile coverage and broadband provision are at best intermittent. It is all very well putting finance into developing telecare/health/medicine but if there is no infrastructure to support the delivery what good will it do?
The reality is though that to get the horse back in front of the cart will depend on community groups acting for themselves and attracting money to put the infrastructure in place – it is of little commercial interest to the telephony providers at this stage when they can more cost effectively increase broadband speeds and use new technologies in cities.