Global Reproductive Health IT Support list

["Manchester, Tim [Constella Futures]" <TManchester AT constellagroup.com>]

Sam,

I get the feeling that you do not want to go country by country and work out what service does best in each African country, but to the extent possible, work with one provider.

Cel Tel has the best 'coverage' (if you call it that). It has good rural coverage for the networks and the best coordination between countries. My Cel Tel number in Tanzania call Uganda and Congo, SMS works, and I should be able to recharge my Tanzania number in Congo with local units. And Cel Tel seems to have the largest interest in data. Your Blackberry will work where they do and their tech folks seem to be a cut above Vodacom (support from SA) and the plethora of local service providers. At last count, they had 10 countries and working on others.

and the Cel Tel CEO is the same lad who is offering a multi million dollar prize to the Head of State who transitions out of power in a peaceful way.

Might be interesting to get a couple of agencies who travel a great deal and need access to data in some wild places, to go in collectively and see what we can work out.

Tim Manchester
Director of Program Development/East Africa

Constella Futures

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
mob: +255 (0)753 251 849, 0783 352 914 (GMT +3)

 

TManchester AT ConstellaGroup.com

www.constellafutures.com

 

TGManchester AT GMail.com

 

 

 

Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:43:33 -0400

From: "Sam Wagner" <swagner AT jhpiego.net>

Subject: [grhits] International cellular data coverage?

To: "Global Reproductive Health IT Support list" <grhits AT lists.ibiblio.org>

I just wanted to 
have a sense of what people use for International travelers as far as cellular 
data goes.

We are currently using some Windows Mobile systems on AT&T but have had limited data support mainly in African countries (voice seems to be doing ok). Verizon and other major US carriers don't seem to offer better data support.

Thanks for any input,

Sam