Cell Phones in Rwanda

Often times, friends from home express surprise when I say I have texted or called someone here in Rwanda.  That almost all Rwandans have a cell phone comes as a complete surprise to many.  After all, when we think "Cell Phones" we think luxury, we think smart phones, we think two year, binding, monthly payment plans, we think roaming fees and overage costs, we think of a huge monthly bill!  How can a country that still struggles to bring many of its people out of poverty also be a place where almost every adult has and uses a cell phone every day?  

Because cell phones here do not equal cell phones in the USA.  It sounds the same, and they perform the same function.  But they are just not the same thing at all.  In fact, after using Rwandan cell service for 7 months, I would love to have a meeting with AT&T, Sprint and Verizon and ask them why on earth they can't take a lesson from MTN and Tigo and quit charging us such exorbitant fees in the USA!  

Why, I wonder, does it cost my family ten times as much to call me in Rwanda from the US as it costs me in Rwanda to call them? It seems the call is traveling the same distance.  Hmmm.  

And why must we have that stupid two year contract?  

And why must we pay each month for services we might not use? 

And, if we choose not to use a payment plan, why is the monthly, pay-as-you-go plan, always SO much more expensive per minute than the plans are?  The pay-as-you-go plans are supposed to be for people with less money, so they aren't stuck in a contract they can't afford. Why then does it cost so much more?  Sounds to me like these companies are exploiting the poor in our country. 

It doesn't have to be this way.  I've seen it done much better. 

In Rwanda, most here buy their airtime one card at a time – the card costs 500 Rwandan Francs.  The foreign exchange rate currently is 634 Rwandan Francs to $1 USD.  Another aside:  phones here aren’t really a luxury – they are more of a necessity.  No one has a physical address:  everyone just lives “near so and so” or “down the path from the large mango tree” or whatever.  So, postal service does not happen.  Land line phones are non-existent.  They never had them.  But, cell phones are something that are largely affordable to all.  You can buy a state of the art (cough, cough) Nokia phone like the kind we all had 12 years ago, for about $10 USD.  Then, like I said, airtime that lasts about a week or more costs a little under $1.  OR, you can buy a used phone, which is what most people do, for about $1 USD or .50 or you might even get one for free if a good friend gets a new phone and hands down his old one to you.  So, it may sound extravagant for a poor person in the middle of nowhere to have a cell phone – but it’s a whole different deal than having a cell in the USA! 

Cell phones are so widely used here, it is difficult for me to imagine how the government and infrastructure of Rwanda ever functioned without them.  They are THE way government agencies, local police, schools, employers and others communicate with citizens/students/parents to relay grades, school holiday information, news updates, new laws, road hazards, and even sales and promotional materials.

 

Can you imagine getting a reminder to turn in your taxes about April 14 from your friendly IRS employee via cell phone text message?  Well, here, folks are told important updates, via text, every day, such as: 

v The road to Kigali will be closed next week due to construction to clear the landslide problem near Buhinge.

v The national health care insurance costs are going up.

v Someone has escaped from jail.  Please be on the lookout.

v Your friendly Nakamutt store is having a sale on dry goods next week. 

All these are common text messages that have come to me, in Kinyarwanda language format, from our local officials.  I guess that’s one way to conserve paper! 

In a place where only 14% of the citizens had access to electricity in their homes (according to a study done in 2011 http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/11/14364622-self-taught-engineer-brings-hydroelectric-power-to-rwanda-village?lite), cell phones are used almost across the Rwandan map.  I'm so glad that this technology has come to this beautiful East African country.  To think it daily saves some elderly lady from walking barefoot for miles just to get water (because she can now text her grandson and ask him to get it for her!), just makes me smile.