Cambodia's National Election Committee had mobile providers bump their SMS services offline over the weekend to impose a government sanctioned "
Censorship and State Control tranquility period." This SMS blackout period was said to prevent voters from being spammed by the various parties during the election's final hours; no word on if this has happened in the past. This type of mobile banning has
some history in Cambodia where 3G was axed for fear of it becoming a platform for the proliferation of adult content. Mobitel, Cambodia's largest provider did provide customers with a few hours notice, but with
SMS costs so low compared to voice -- about 2 cents per message -- this service outage likely left many without an affordable means of communication. We aren't sure if this is too obvious, but shouldn't the various candidates just behave themselves and allow the entire population of the country get on with their business? Service was set to be restored shortly after the polls closed at 3 PM.
posted Apr 3rd 2007 7:35AM
i'm so happy when i can send free sms to all my friends.