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Local governments in the developing world face a serious communications problem. As Roomthinker tweets, there is currently no easy mechanism for constituents to communicate with their elected officials - in urban or rural and underserved areas:

Mass media can quickly inform or educate but radio, TV, and newspapers are usually state controlled by national organizations distant from local needs or decisions. And none of these media are two-way communications. Just one-to-many broadcast mediums.

In addition, local governments can be ignorant about constituents' changing needs and interests - especially marginalized communities that have been historically ignored or under-represented. Local governments may produce services that they find interesting or please national politicians without any feedback from the people they are expected to serve.

Yet there now exits a technology application that could give feedback on the needs of a community, even providing for targeted two-way communication between local governments and their citizenry. This technology is easy to implement and can be easily modified with changing needs: SMS text messaging.

SMS:Gov as 311

Local governments could set up automated SMS systems in their offices and then promote the phone number so citizens in need could text for local government assistance.

Using tools like FrontlineSMS, the local government would set us a simple menu tree for incoming text messages - each keyword would generate a particular response, leading to a new keyword. The system would track mobile phone numbers, allowing for a basic census of constituent needs and interests.

For example: someone texting "Weather" would receive a basic forecast & could respond with CropForecast, FishingForecast, or NationalForecast for specialized weather forecasts in each area. This would both educate the respondents and track how many citizens were interested in each area.

Multiply this over the many local government services and a single FrontlineSMS instance could become an automated information service similar to the 311 service in New York, San Francisco, and Washington DC, at a fraction of the cost.

David connecting with government

SMS:Gov as Citizen Pulse

Smart politicians try to stay engaged with their electorate - keeping in constant communication with them to gauge their mood and needs. Yet how can a local politician know what his geographically disperse constituents need and inform them of his efforts?

Again, using a FrontlineSMS system, officials can easily gather citizen input via SMS, grouping constituent interests by keywords. Then, based on those keywords, informing them of his actions in their interests. Think My Barak Obama via text message.

Try out live SMS:Gov

Intrigued? Then text "LOCALGOV" to this phone number +1.202.506.0148 and you can test out our live FrontlineSMS:Gov demo. Yes, really! Try it yourself from anywhere in the world.

If you're in Washington DC, be sure to join the Technology Salon to be invited to the May Salon on SMS applications for the developing world. We'll have live, in-person demos of SMS:Gov, SMS:Medic, SMS:Credit, and think through an SMS:Learn.

Kayode Muyibi of Narihost has launched a new service for Nigerians - free SMS messages to and from any Nigerian mobile phone provider via SMSvolt.com. The service has caught on with a bang! He's sending thousands of SMS per day.

Impressed with his innovation, I caught up with Kayode and interviewed him via Skype chat on the why and how of his service:

Wayan Vota: So why did you start http://www.smsvolt.com/? To see if you could do it? To test out a business idea? For the money?

Kayode Muyibi: I started sms volt as an experiment to test on the potential market response to sms based content. This is done through allowing anybody to send free SMS in restricted 120 character limit instead of the160 character limit per message.

Wayan Vota: Why the 120 character limit? What fills the reminding 40 char? Is that an ad? If so, what kind of ad? Can someone buy adverts in that space or is the inventory already sold to someone?

Kayode Muyibi: We have not currently decided on what to use the 40 characters for, but yes ads are a likely model, We would like to explore the idea. So, Instead of sending mass content, we merge it up with text based ads on the remaining space

Wayan Vota: It seems like its only Nigeria to Nigeria - no ability to send from a USA cell phone number to a Nigeria mobile phone number. So its sending within Nigeria, not sending to Nigeria?

Kayode Muyibi: We could allow just anybody to send messages to a Nigerian number, but we face a dilemma of impersonation and abuse. So for now we would only send messages from a verified number to any number. 702, 802, etc are the carrier codes for the Nigerian mobile providers. We do not think that people from outside Nigeria would likely use our service.

Wayan Vota: I would think there is a huge demand of the Nigerian Diaspora to send SMS text messages to Nigerian phone numbers.

Kayode Muyibi: Well this is something we would likely consider perhaps in the future, as for now, I would like to see the response from within Nigeria

Wayan Vota: Why is it free/cheap to send SMS in Nigeria this way?

Kayode Muyibi: We are using a local based provider that discounts on bulk, and this is a comparison between 15-20 Naira to free per message. So we are assuming the cost of sending as the marketing cost - the cost of obtaining a valid phone number

Wayan Vota: How long did it take you to code this? Earlier, you said 2 days - was that 48 hours of Mountain Dew powered coding?

Kayode Muyibi: Actually it took me about 6 hours to code it but the testing and debugging took another 12-24 hours considering I got feedbacks right after I launched through twitter, email and even through the site logs

Wayan Vota: Congrats on your skill and your success. I'm hopeful we'll see even more innovation from you & your team.

If you'd like to take part in an ICTworks interview, email me today!

Here is a very heartening tweet from Ory Okolloh about Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile phone operator:

If in deed, Safaricom broadband modems and their use are making Safaricom more money than SMS, its a great day for both mobile phone users and Internet business opportunities in Kenya.

Internet Business Opportunity

Obviously, the more people online and consuming data, means there is more opportunity for existing businesses of all kinds to use the Internet to reach new customers and create more revenues.

Yet this is an amazing opportunity for new businesses - new models and new entrepreneurs. The barrier to entry for online businesses is very low and with organizations like iHub, we will see a cornucopia of new businessmen trying out ideas.

Mobile Phone Opportunity

Regardless of the Internet business opportunites, we should rejoice at the news that SMS is no longer the huge cash cow. Maybe now, mobile line operators will realize that Africa's mobile phone future is IP based, not SMS and loosen up on SMS restrictions.

This would release a second wave of innovation - SMS is still a killer app and would be even more revolutionary if prices were low and it had the openness of IP-based software code development.

The $100 smartphone price barrier is broken! Nokia recently announced the 2730 Classic and Synchronica released the MessagePhone. Both mobile phones will retail for $100 or less across the developing world.

Price is also the major selling point for the Vodaphone 150, a self-proclaimed "world's cheapest mobile phone". Its only $15. But it only supports SMS and voice. Which brings us to an interesting question:

Which is better: price or functionality?

You could argue that its better to have something, even a stripped down $15 mobile phone, than nothing. But is price really the only factor? Even for the poorest, I would argue not. Consider the $35 Simu ya Solar which has its own solar panel, a perfect phone charging solution.

In addition, Ken Banks points out the "emerging market" handset trap with these low-end phones:

The prices may have changed, but functionality has largely stagnated. You couldn’t browse the web on the Motorola in 2005, nor the ZTE in 2008, and today you’d have the same problem on the Vodafone 150. You can’t download applications onto any of them, either. They all have monochrome screens and look pretty-much-the-same despite having a five year gap between them. Very little has changed other than price

More mobile phone functionality, please

Voice is the killer mobile phone application - bar none. Next up, SMS is the most popular application - bust should it continue to hold that title? For multiple reasons, I believe that Africa's mobile phone future is IP based, not SMS. To gain, IP needs data enabled phones. Handsets like the 2730 and the MessagePhone.

So while I applaud Vodaphone for cutting costs, might all this gone a bit too far? Could we have innovation on functionality at a higher price point? I could see a $50 smartphone having greater impact than a $15 voice/SMS phone.

A $50 smartphone would drive data usage out to rural areas now limited to SMS-only. It would also allow for much greater opportunities by all the actors involves - rural communities and the business and development organizations that want to reach them.

A $50 smartphone would also challenge the high costs of smartphones in the developed world. A South to North innovation we all could applaud.