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"British carrier Vodafone has just unveiled a pair of ultra cheap mobile devices \u2014 starting at below $15 \u2014 that it will sell unsubsidized to customers in developing markets in India, Turkey and Africa.\n\nThe Vodafone 150 and 250 handsets will retail for less than $15 and $20 respectively. While the phones are intentionally bare-boned on the feature side, they're priced for people in potentially isolated and impoverished areas who may not otherwise be able to afford mobile devices.\nThe low-cost devices will support voice calls, SMS and mobile payments, with the 250 model including a color screen and FM radio.\nIn addition to Turkey and India, Vodafone will sell the handsets in eight African nations: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Qatar, South Africa and Tanzania.\nVodafone's developing country mobile initiative is both hardware and infrastructure intensive. So in order to support the potential new customers and rural areas, the carrier is ramping up its wireless infrastructure to support areas where cell coverage is typically poor.\nYou can see the phone in action and hear about its purpose in the video below.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/02/16/vodafone-150/>