The most popular mobile data segment of all, SMS, is set to continue its growth in 2008 with estimates that over 2 trillion messages will be sent worldwide.

Research and Markets: In 2008 It Is Predicted That Over 2 Trillion Text Messages Will Be Sent Worldwide and This Number Continues To Grow

A Chinese politician, Zhao Linzhong has called for SMS voting to be banned as it “breeds corruption”. He said that such activities are serious in nature and affect the morality of the people.

Chinese Politican Calls for a Ban on Text Voting

The human race is crossing a line. There is now one cellphone for every two humans on Earth.

From essentially zero, we’ve passed a watershed of more than 3.3 billion active cellphones on a planet of some 6.6 billion humans in about 26 years. This is the fastest global diffusion of any technology in human history — faster even than the polio vaccine.

Our Cells, Ourselves – washingtonpost.com

The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa

The photo-documentary report entitled “ The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and Abuse to Africa,” exposes the ugly underbelly of what is thought to be an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe and sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. In Lagos, while there is a legitimate robust market and ability to repair and refurbish old electronic equipment including computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones, the local experts complain that of the estimated 500 40-foot containers shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75% of the imports are “junk” and are not economically repairable or marketable. Consequently, this e-waste, which is legally a hazardous waste is being discarded and routinely burned in what the environmentalists call yet “another “cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries.”

Basel Action Network (BAN)

Siemens Networks, a joint venture of Nokia and Siemens, are installing new cellular base stations at a furious pace, the facilities almost always get their power from diesel-powered generators. However, fuel can account for as much as two-thirds of base-station operating costs. Add to that the expense of trucking diesel over poor roads to far-flung locations and protecting the valuable fuel against theft. “Getting oil or diesel to these stations is tremendously difficult,” says Mats Granryd, president of Ericsson India.

As a result, green energy is suddenly becoming more than a feel-good project for the world’s mobile service providers. As mobile networks expand far beyond the reach of power grids, they need to find alternatives to diesel. After experimenting for years with base stations powered by wind, solar energy or biofuel, equipment suppliers are preparing to roll out alternative energy technology in significant numbers.

 Green Mobile Phone Base Stations: Taking Root, Beginning to Sprout