By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

State-of-the-art broadband services still don’t reach many parts of the African continent, especially rural villages. But one consumer technology is pervasive: cell phones.

According to the Cisco VNI Service Adoption Forecast, there will be 1.3 billion consumer mobile devices across the Middle East and Africa by 2016 – a billion of them being basic feature phones, not smartphones. At the same time, mobile video is expected to be the fastest-growing service in the region, with 184 million users projected by 2016.

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Tags: africa, healthcare, ICT4D, mobile video, rural, vni, VNI-SA

I’m very upbeat, regarding the current outlook for the Global Networked Economy in 2013. In particular, I see a tremendous opportunity to further explore the many benefits of readily-available wireless access to the internet.

Numerous events occurred during the course of 2012 that indicate we’re getting closer to a mobile broadband nirvana scenario – whereby network deployment has a positive impact on economic growth and potentially results in a higher living standard for those that take advantage of this valuable resource.

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Tags: broadband, economic development, global networked economy, internet, service provider wi-fi

By Michele Baker-Cuthbert, Guest Columnist

Remember the early days of 3-D movies as a kid and watching the classics, like the Creature from the Black Lagoon as it terrorized people from under water?

Whenever Hollywood comes out with a new 3-D movie, people get excited to attend due to the thrill of the movie. Many users consider the difference in experience between in-theatre vs at-home.

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Tags: 3D TV, digital TV, entertainment, trends, vni, VNI-SA

By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

Modern medicine has brought some amazing technological advances. But at the end of the day, the most powerful medical tool remains the old-fashioned one: expert clinicians with the knowledge to evaluate, monitor and care for patients.

The problem: how do you get medical expertise to all of the places it’s needed? One growing answer: Telemedicine.

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Tags: broadband, emergency, healthcare, hospitals, robotics, telemedicine, video

By Laura Walker Hudson, Guest Columnist

FrontlineSMS grew out of a conviction that mobile could be a more powerful tool if it was made completely accessible to smaller teams and projects as a professional tool. Also known as text messaging, SMS is the most widespread digital communications platform to date and is still growing. The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Service Adoption Forecast predicts that 90% of global mobile subscribers will be using SMS by 2016, up from 74% in 2011.

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Tags: africa, FrontlineSMS, Kenya, mobile technology, mobile vni forecast, NGO, sms, text messaging, vni, VNI-SA