Stealing Copper - Second Order
In many countries in Africa, copper is extraordinarily valuable as the raw material input for trinkets and tourist souvenirs. Where do you get a ready supply of copper, if you are desperately poor? Easy – just steal it from the telecommunications lines that criss-cross the land. A big problem for land-line based telephone operators has become a boon for mobile phone companies, even at a price that is 10 times the price of land-line based service. Now that citizens have mobile phones, a secondary market in phone-based services is beginning to emerge. Who would have thought that a great opportunity can come from such desperation?
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- Posted: Monday, August 08, 2005
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