Interesting article by Roland Buerk at BBC News on how the mobile phone is an important economic driver for poor women in rural areas of Bangladesh.

In the area’s where there’s no fixed line telephone service, these ‘telephone ladies’ resell cellphone calls to village habitants with the assistance of Grameen bank who helps these women setting up their business through small start-up loans.

“Before I got the phone nobody respected me, …” Roshinara Begum said as she sat in the tin hut she uses as her office, clutching the phone that has changed her life.

Grameen bank has given loans to 180,000 telephone ladies so far, and 10,000 more are being signed up each month. The key to the success of the scheme is that it is not charity – every month Grameen gets $10m in revenue.

“At the same time customers are also benefiting because, even though they don’t have a phone, they are getting a phone service at cost price, at a market price.”