英国新闻听力 非洲手机话费昂贵（在线收听）

Malawi is one of the poorest nations in Africa with millions of people living under the poverty line. Unemployment rates are high. And those who have jobs have meager salaries. Yet a recent survey shows that manyMalawians are using more than half of their monthly incomes on mobile phone usage. This makes Malawi one of the most expensive countries in the world to use cellular phones.

In Malawi you will see huge billboards advertizing mobile phone. Here in the capital Lilongwe, I can see the branding and marketing also on umbrellas used by street venders, T-shirts. But mobile services are anything but low price in this country. In fact, a report by the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, says on average, Malawians use more than twelve dollars a month on cell phones. This is more than half of what an ordinary Malawian earns. In neighboring Mozambique, consumers spend just over a quarter of their income on mobile phone usage. But in Kenya and South Africa, the figure is significantly lower amounting toless than five percent of average monthly earnings. This lack of competition is why mobile tariffs are so high. The government might be forced to intervene to bring down the cost of using a mobile phone.

We are thinking of reducing interconnection rates.

But it is not just the cost of mobile services that is an issue in Malawi. Many consumers also want the providers to give them value for their money by improving the quality of service they get.

There are times that the network is very bad. Even the Internet is very slow. So it’s so frustrating sometimes you want to make a call, it’s a quick one and then you can’t get through. So these are some of thethings that I have seen that maybe they need to change.

And we are told recently according to researchers that they are very high in Africa. You see? And we are looking forward to them going down. They are very high. And we are complaining as customers.

But in order for the services to improve, the government says it needs to upgrade existing infrastructure,especially in rural areas. The authorities admit this could take up to five years.

One of the films up for an award in the documentary category at this Sunday’s Oscars is The Salt of the Earth. It’s a biopic about Brazilian photographer Sebasti?o Salgado who dedicated his career to documenting the human side of conflicts and crisis. For more than forty years, Salgado has traveled the world capturing unexpected beauty in appalling places.