Nokia released a press release today, announcing that they will introduce affordable mobile phones by the end of November. This is part of Nokia’s ongoing effort to bridge the digital divide. Retail prices for the mobile phones will be starting at 25 EUR.

Nokia further announced the release of Internet services for the emerging market. The services will be available in 2009. They will cover applications and domains like e-mail, agriculture, and health. For example, Mail on Ovi allows users to create an e-mail account directly on the mobile phone. A trial of this service will start by the end of November.

It will be interesting to see the impact of the new devices and services on developing countries in the next months.

We wrote this blog post about our trip from Zambia to Tanzania already a while ago, but as said earlier Internet connections in Africa are sparse and I forgot to bring the text with me. That’s why we only post it now.

After a 30 hours bus drive starting in Lusaka, we arrived in Dar Es Salam on Sunday 19 October. The bus ride was quite an experience. It was overcrowded, both with passengers and luggage, since they were shipping some goods in strange boxes. The bus was old and dodgy and so was the street, especially closer towards Dar Es Salaam. We were also constantly stopped by the police at check points. At the first check point they took one of the conductors into custody (for whichever reason, we couldn’t find that out), after which more than half of the passengers exited the bus to demonstrate (successfully).

Crossing the border was also quite interesting. We arrived before 6am and had to wait until the gates were opened. There were many locals selling SIM cards and airtime, which seems to be the big border business (besides changing any currency into Tanzanian Shillings).

We only stayed one night in Dar Es Salam and took a speedboat to Zanzibar the following morning, where we checked into some private accommodation in the middle of Stone Town. Quite nice. Simple, but very authentic.

We did many interviews with locals in Stone Town the following days. More about that in another blog post.