In San Francisco, a “bedouin” is a young urban freelancer, saddled with the latest in laptops and cell-phones, who has traded in the sedentary lifestyle of the office for the nomadism of frequenting wifi cafes. In Mauritania, a sparsely-populated desert country on the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa, the number of nomads is actually shrinking as drought and urbanization sedentarizes the original bedouins. Those who preserve this ancient way of life, however, are benefiting from their first-ever access to cellular technology. With telecommunications markets in Europe and North Africa reaching saturation levels of over 100%, providers are looking for growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Phones are rapidly penetrating Africa’s remotest regions, as European and Arab companies compete to tap into one of the world’s last remaining non-wired areas. Improvements in cellular technology have facilitated penetration of these regions, opening them up to communications and information-sharing on an unprecedented level. A decade
