Nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide use mobile phones, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Mobile phone subscriptions have doubled since 2000, with China, India and Russia leading the surge.
By contrast, land line subscriptions have remained flat or have declined since 2001, largely because of lower international telecommunication rates. Currently, mobile phone users outnumber users of land lines.
Adriana de Souza e Silva, whose thinking on mobile technology we've discussed here before, suggests that mobile phones, when coupled with SMS and other interactive utilities, are becoming the "new media" that's changing the way we perceive space and place. If that is true, the sheer number of mobile phone users will accellerate the pace of that change.
Sources: Reuters, trAce, Clippings.reblog
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