Cambodia Bans SMS Before Elections

by Jordan Yerman | March 30, 2007 at 11:13 pm

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My travels in Cambodia have shown me that it is a very, very poor country populated by very, very resourceful people. SMS is a cheap way for people to use their mobile phones for something other than a paperweight, as even airtime cards are purchased with US dollars (around 4000 riel per dollar). Ban SMS, ban communication between people separated by any appreciable distance. Scary stuff indeed.

Mobile-phone text messaging in Cambodia has been suspended for the weekend, so that users are not bombarded with political texts during an election.

The National Election Committee has asked phone networks to turn off the service until after the polls have closed in Sunday's local elections.

Human-rights and opposition activists have criticised the move, calling the action unnecessary.

With no little irony, users were informed of the move by text message.

Providers gave customers just a few hours' notice.

The largest local operator, Mobitel, apologised "for any inconvenience".

Millions of Cambodians own mobile phones, and SMS text messaging is the way that many of them prefer to communicate.

At around two cents a time, it is by far the cheapest way of staying in touch.