For a continent where half of its 800 million people have never made a phone call, mobile conversation and online surfing have been nothing more than "what the rich do" for large number of Africa's rural residents.

However, things may be changing in the east African country of Kenya. Kenyan Information and Telecommunication Minister Mutahi Kagwe announced Monday in Nairobi that even in remote villages, people could be able to send emails and call their distant relatives, upon the arrival of an up-to-date Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless solution introduced by one of China's leading telecommunication equipment suppliers.

A wide range of state of the art solutions, branded "Africa standard," brought in to the poorest continent by Huawei and ZTE, which played key role in helping China leapfrog into the "digital first-world" with a year on year mobile subscriber increase of around 40 percent. Even pastoral tribes men in areas as otherworldly as Tibet carry cell phones and chat away as they roam, all pun intended, the highlands.

Such scene might be able to copy itself here in Africa, since Ethiopia, Mauritius, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa had turned to the made-in-China technology solutions which cost less than the ones previously in use.

A case at hand, Telecom Kenya has reduced per fixed-line cost to around 70 U.S. dollars from the previous 200 dollars following adoption of digital switching equipment manufactured in China.

Telecommunications experts said that the emerging of Chinese players in the game had "benefited the cash-strapped country as unaffordable prices being beaten down and bubbles squeezed out."

Analysts said a more reasonable telephone and internet tariffs could be expected within three years and predicted that the turning point of Africa's telecommunications development were likely to come. Translation, millions of poor Africans can make affordable phone calls and surf the internet without worrying about making ends meet, and hence the empowerment information brings. WHERE SIGNALS DROP DEAD

The state-owned Telecom Kenya, in conventional ways, needs copper wire or fiber optic cable for its voice and data services to reach out-of-the-way villages. To make matters worse, it is also commercially unfeasible, which means commercial operators are highly unlikely to channel money into those desolate areas where profitability is, at the best, low.

Zhang Ruijun, Director of Customer Financing Department of Huawei, however, said his company has commercially laudable solutions to reach those areas where signals drop dead.

Since the wireless CDMA standard has the same exit protocol with fixed line, the incumbent fixed-line operators can roll out affordable and reliable wireless voice and data services without abandoning their million-dollar core network equipment, according to experts.

That saved operators at least two fifths of its investment compared to choosing the likes of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), another mainstream wireless solution, and cut cost at least by 60 percent against building fixed lines.

Further more, operating communication services for the world's poorest people is for the first time likely to be profitable, if things go smooth, it will take about ten years for the Kenya rural telecommunication development project to recover its cost.

It is also projected that a wider service cover could help lower tariffs for subscribers within three years.

"The past decade has witnessed how mobile phones and internet change lives in the capital Nairobi, making hunting for a job or doing business easier," said Telecommunication Minister Kagwe, " from now on, the Kenyan government will ensure those still stranded in backward villages, in near future, have the equal chance of communication access."

Maybe in the near future, flower or tea farmers can stop complaining that poor communications conditions get in the way of their business. HUAWEI GOES LOCAL

A few months after Huawei set up a new branch in Tanzania early last year, it hired over a dozen local employees, about the same size as the office's Chinese staff.

"They are all graduates majoring in telecommunication but have little sense of New Generation Network or 3G. As Huawei in every African country did, we are teaching them with all the necessary know-how," said Tao Jingwen, president of the company's sub-Sahara Africa office.

In Nigeria, Huawei has established a multi-million dollar, multi-product training center in Abuja and has trained hundreds of professionals for Nigeria.

Another key Chinese supplier, ZTE, also plans to build a telecommunications institute in Angola as its products are now in use in 14 African countries.

Instead of making big money from after-service, Chinese companies chose to train local employees and clients' technicians into professionals of the sector.

That's one of Huawei's efforts in responding to Chinese government's commitments to help build up Africa's own IT industry capacity as human resources is so crucial for the continent, said Tao.

When companies such as Huawei goes local in Africa, the continent also gains precious talent with indigenous know-how, and that may prove to be even more important for the continent in the long run than a few cell phone networks Huawei is building.

Source: Xinhua