Is Endaga's Telco-In-A-Box The Cell Phone Solution For The Next Billion?

The company brings communication to far-away villages, and also provides the locals a built-in business opportunity. Too bad it's illegal.

The UN's International Telecommunication Union estimates that while mobile subscriptions have grown to 7 billion globally, developed countries take a far larger share, with only 69 out of every 100 Africans subscribing to mobile services, leaving roughly 340 million Africans without mobile access. Though Asia and Pacifica has a higher 89-per-100 subscription rate, that still means that 440 million people from that region are without cell access—leading to nearly a billion people without cell access worldwide. And a lot of these people—isolated on islands, in deep jungles, or cut off by mountains—aren't going to get coverage anytime soon. It's too expensive for telecommunications companies to build the grid out to them.

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