A new service will bring email services to rural and urban areas across the African country of Lesotho via any mobile phone, more than doubling the population’s access to email.

Lesotho’s highly literate population struggles to access vital information, such as
healthcare, travel and educational resources as according to the International
Telecommunication Union only 3.4 per cent of the population use the Internet.
Expanding the country’s access to email via entry level, low end mobile phones will
consequently improve access to information, communications with friends and family,
and trade.

Econet Telecom Lesotho is the first African mobile service operator to enable their
entire customer base to send and receive email via ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message
Optimiser service. The new service, which goes live on 28th September 2009,
enables Econet Telecom Lesotho to offer two-way email to their entire mobile
customer base, without the end user requiring any Internet access, device upgrades
or application downloads.

Mpine Tente Head of Department Retail and Customer Service of Econet Telecom
Lesotho said: “We are proud to be one of the first companies in Africa to significantly
improve the population’s access to email via ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message
Optimiser service which opens up email communications to our entire subscriber
base irrespective of what phone they are using. Our mobile phone customers can
now use email to share important information, communicate with family overseas or
friends in another country, or even do business with people just a few miles down the
road, all for the cost of a local SMS. Message Optimiser sends and receives emails
via SMS to any mobile phone.”

ForgetMeNot Africa is a specialist in unified messaging for telecommunications
operators. Their unique Handset Initiation (HI) technology bypasses the need for
Internet access and opens up the service to all mobile phone users, even those in
the remotest of areas.

Jeremy George, Chief Operating Officer of ForgetMeNot Africa commented:
“Currently Lesotho’s population has to share access to a little over 2,000 PCs
connected to the Internet, most of which are in urban areas. Availability of
smartphones, laptops and even fixed line Internet connections is very low for this
highly literate country. Using ForgetMeNot Africa’s Message Optimiser, Econet
Telecom Lesotho will bring mobile email to the entire Econet Telecom Lesotho
subscriber base of both post and prepay customers across the country. The service
will transform the country’s low grade mobile phones into a stepping stone across the
global digital divide.”

Tags: African mobile service operator, Econet Telecom Lesotho, email to sms, ForgetMeNot Africa, Message Optimiser, two way email