Description : Sitting with her friend Nasrin in Fatema?s combined bedroom-kitchen, Salima speaks to her husband, who works in Singapore. With postal service slow, landlines unbuilt and e-mail beyond their reach, the mobile phone is the best way for people in rural Bangladesh to connect with friends and family who have moved away. Dhaluarchar, Bangladesh. Fatema comes from a poor family in the village of Dhaluarchar, in Bangladesh. In 1998 she bought a cell phone, through a nonprofit program set up by Bangladesh?s Grameen Bank, in partnership with a cellular company called Grameen Phone. Their aim was to sell mobile phones to rural women to provide them with a business opportunity and link their neighbors to the wider world. Fatima took out a loan for 0 from Grameen Bank, on a payback system of 400 taka a week, about , over four years. She paid off the loan in one year. Her income exceeds 0 a year, in a country where the annual per-capita income is about 0. Today, in her mid-30s, Fatema is one of Dhaluarchar?s most prosperous residents. Much of this she owes to her mobile phone.