Text messages

Last year, when I used to work as a journalist for a TV station, I did a report on how important text messaging had become in Ecuador.
You wont' believe what I discovered. Ecuador is the third country in the world , that sends more daily messages from cell phones. Philippines and Thailand are second and first. I couldn't believe it! Our population is around 13 million people but almost everyone has a cell phone. It is a strange phenomena that I will try to explain.

More than 60% of our population live in poor conditions. About 30% live in rural areas. So you would ask how they can afford a cell phone? Well, asking for a phone line takes years. There are many places where phone lines are not available, so entire families prefer to have a prepaid plan with a cell phone. The thing is that in most countries in Latin America you are not charged for the incoming calls, just for the ones that you do. Second, the calling minute is very expensive, (at least for us) 7 cents the minute. So, they are plenty of cellular phone plans to make everyone's life easier. Cell phones companies have incredible plans with text messaging. For example a package of 500 messages a month costs 3 dollars. As you can see everyone in Ecuador uses text messaging.
Everyone, is everyone. Teens are crazy sending messages. Students, businessman and even moms are now experts.

The incredible thing is that is not only use as an entertainment tool, also as a work tool as well as a protesting tool. In the last political crisis.. people in Quito used the text messaging to get together in parks, avenues, and government buildings and protest!! To make a phone call to each of your friends and relatives would have been very expensive. But sending a text message and forwarding was the best thing to do.