Village Phones cross 250,000 subscriber mark
The internationally acclaimed Village Phone Program, a joint initiative of GrameenPhone Ltd and Grameen Telecom to provide universal access to mobile phone services in rural areas, has recently crossed the 250,000 subscriber mark.The village phone programme started on March 26, 1997, the same day the GrameenPhone service was launched. Presently there are more than 253,000 Village Phones in operation in over 50,000 villages across the country, says a press release. The programme is run by Grameen Telecom, a not-for-profit company, in cooperation with Grameen Bank, the internationally recognised pioneer of the micro-credit movement. "The Village Phone Program of Grameen Telecom, which is mandated to promote development of information and communication-based technologies in rural areas, has ushered in a quiet revolution in Bangladesh. Almost one out of ten people in Bangladesh now have a mobile phone in their hands, something that was a dream even ten years ago," said Khalid Shams, the CEO of Grameen Telecom. The Village Phones function as an owner-operated pay phone with full connectivity including international call facility. Typically, a poor village woman borrower of Grameen Bank buys a subscription and handset with a loan from the bank and then retails the telephone services in the village.
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