Rural Farmers Can Benefit From Mobile Phone Extension

Liberia's mobile phone companies are extending services to residents in the 16 counties of Liberia. Libercell now lead the extension of mobile phone services.Besides providing services in Montserrado County,Libercell are providing mobile phone communication in Maryland, Grand Gedeh, Nimba, Bong, Lofa, Margibi, Grand Bassa, Bomi and Grand Cape Mount Counties respectively.
This mobile phone development in the counties can help rural farmers in knowing the market price for agriculture produce. Furthermore, the service extension in rural Liberia can lead to the rural communities and Monrovia doing more business. In fact, the mobile phone extension may be a welcome development for the return of more rural residents to their towns and villages after spending some years in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, which have sprawled around Monrovia and its environs because of the 14 years civil upheaval.
For instance, over the weekend, a Muslim family was traveling to attend a Muslim festival in the Month of Ramadan in a town near Bo Waterside, Grand Cape Mount County. The husband purchased some Libercell Sim cards just to remain connected while in Cape Mount for the weekend. What made the family trip worth mentioning was the convenient of communication for this family as provided by Libercell.
As this communication development moves, communication links between Monrovia and the counties is going to enable people move around the countryside with ease.
For similar reason, internally displaced persons can easily return to their towns and villages while remaining in touch with their connections back in Monrovia. Yet still, Lone Star or Libercell may be providing mobile phone service that links them with the people they have lived with, and are leaving behind, without traveling back to see them.
For example, since Libercell informed the public that it has extended mobile phone service to Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County. Information indicates that people have been receiving the network in other towns such as Sinje, Wongayko, Tienii, Dieh, and Bo Waterside situated in Cape Mount County. As a result, people have been communicating with relatives and friends in Monrovia. Moreover, it is motivating other business people to establish mobile phone booths that can provide access to mobile phones in the area.
In addition, the mobile phone service extension can be of benefit to the tourism industry and agricultural sector of Liberia. Such tourism development can take place in Robertsport, the provincial capital of Grand Cape Mount County. Robertsport has a beautiful mountainous background. Furthermore, it is located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and the banks of the Lake Piso. With its mountainous landscape, the provincial city gives residents beautiful views of the ocean and lake, at the same time. A tourist can stand from Robertsport and look far in the horizon gazing at the beauty of the Lake Piso and the Atlantic Ocean.
Moreover, the Lake provides natural scene for boat riding. With such geographical feature, Robertsport can receive foreign visitations. That shows how hotel accommodations in Monrovia can take their guests on tour in Robertsport. The city is between 62 to 63 miles away from Monrovia. With access to communication, the city can enjoy the goodwill of foreign guests for site seeing deep into the county.
As a result, this is just one business area that the mobile phone service development can improve in that rural community. With the flow of information by mobile phone, the fishermen can trade between Monrovia and Robertsport at lower cost. Such minimum trading cost ensures price stability for the consumers of dry fish in Monrovia.
On the other hand, the nation's agriculture production is bound to gain more positive from the mobile phone service extension. It can lead to speedy rehabilitation and recovery of cocoa and coffee farms abandoned during the civil war in the country. This development is going to come with the certainty of prices for cocoa and coffee between the rural farmers and the main produce buyer- the Liberia Produce Marketing Corporation (LPMC).
Nevertheless, with mobile phone service in the counties, cocoa and coffee farmers can now have direct access to information from LPMC about the prices of cocoa and coffee.

Libercell CONNECTS vOINJAMA

VOINJAMA, Lofa County, Oct 3 – Residents of Voinjama, Lofa County, have expressed joy at the manner in which the management of Libercell, a Liberian cell phone company, has linked their area with the outside community.

Management sources say Libercell’s connection of Voinjama now brings to 10 major cities and provinces connected by mobile phone since it begun operation nearly two years ago.

“You can now call Voinjama and talk to your business partners, family members and love ones at a very affordable price using your system,” said Mohammed Alawie, Libercell general manager.

He said the Voinjama connection with Monrovia and the rest of the world by mobile phone followed months of work by a dedicated team of technicians.

Libercell provides mobile phone services in Tubmanburg, Bomi County; Buchanan/LAC, Grand Bassa County; Totota, Salala and Gbarnga, Bong County; and Harper, Maryland County. Other areas include Kakata, Harbel and Robertsfield in Montserrado County.

Voinjama citizens have, meanwhile, commended the management of Libercell for bringing relief to them by linking them up with Monrovia and the rest of the world.

Libercell EXTENDS TO ROBERTSPORT

The LiberCell, the biggest mobile phone in area coverage in Liberia, has expanded its services to the City of Robertsport in Grand Cape Mount county.
Robertsport is now the 12th major city and headquarters linked through mobile phone by LiberCell since beginning its operations nearly two years.
Residents of Robertsport have expressed immense joy and satisfaction that they can now all their relatives and loved ones in other parts of the country and the world.
LiberCell General Manager Mr. Mohammed Alawie said that the mobile link to Robertsport and other major cities is part of the company's expansion program in keeping with its commitment to connect the entire country by phone next year.
Mr. Alawie said LiberCell mobile phone service is considered the most effective and affordable service with t the strongest signal and clearest reception in Liberia.
LiberCell has linked Monsterrado, LAC and Buchanan in Grand Bassa county; Kakata, Totota, robertsfield, and Harbel in Margibi, gbarnga and Bong counties respectilvely, as well as voijama in Lofa County and Tubmanburg in Bomi county.

Libercell Leaps! - Connects Maryland County, Strategize To Cover Liberia By March 2006

The GSM Communication companies may be many but there is one has defied all odds - bad roads, troubling conditions including the lack of materials in some of the faraway counties. Libercell has made another leap, this time connecting Maryland County, and the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Azzam Sbaity, says calling from Maryland is just the tip of the iceberg of the bigger plans the company has to cover the entire Country with its communications network. As Gibson W. Jerue reports, Libercell says, calling Maryland is not the only thing, but that calling there is of quality.

Mr. Sbaity is happy that he is serving the Liberian people and if it's left with him, apart from all the difficulties due to lack of electricity, Liberia must be covered within the next eight months of his company's extension operations.

Technicians and experts of Libercell brave a 23-hour drive of about 700-kilometer road to travel to as far as to the eastern region of the country to install Libercell communication equipment, a technical job which Mr. Sbaity called, "brining Maryland to Monrovia." Libercell presently calls from several counties including Bomi, Margibi, Bong, Grand Bassa, including the Liberia agriculture Company (LAC) as well as Montserrado County where its headquarters are based.

Mr. Sbaity told journalists during a briefing Friday that his company is now targeting Lofa and Grand Cape Mount counties as a steady move toward covering the entire country by next March.

"The cost for our Maryland project," he noted, "was not only bad roads condition, but it took us 90 days to successfully install our system, setup our materials, after an expensive and extensive work." The dilemma Libercell experts had to face was the raw fact that there are no wires and anything that makes the job of installing GSM facilities in such a faraway county, but Sbaity says: "We only wanted to go to the farthest area and bring it closer to Monrovia.

According to him, it gives him pleasure if he continues to fulfill his promises to the Liberian people that Libercell in offering credible, substantive, quality, clearest and reliable communication opportunity in the country.

"We calculated the risk and accepted it before moving to Maryland," the Libercell Chief Executive said.

He said, "This is not the issue of money-making. It is about rendering services, quality services. And this is one good thing about competition." "Competition gives better services, and it is my obligation to convince you [the public] why you should use Libercell. We have the biggest coverage in Liberia right now," Mr. Sbaity told the press.

Mr. Sbaity said guaranteed that Libercell calling from Maryland is and will continue to be as clear as its signal in Monrovia and other areas that it is covering.

But why it is transmitting calls to and from Maryland, Libercell is empowering the local population as its CEO said it has already employed ten Liberians to work with and manage the out station offices.

Though Mr. Sbaity praised the security situation in Maryland guaranteeing continual operation from there, he says the major challenge is electricity to keep the system running.

"But we are taking care of that. Breakdown takes place anytime but we have our men there to ensure that Monrovia and Maryland enjoy the same services that we offer," he asserted.

Meanwhile, the Libercell CEO has said that the GSM Company would begin its second phase that would go to Grand Cape Mount and Lofa counties by October this year and be finished by March 20, 2006.

The Libercell GSM Company started in February 2004, and almost immediately began installing equipment in March of the same year.

Initially, the GSM Company experienced some hitches in the process of setting in motion its operation when authorities of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications created some bottlenecks, but they later apologized and admitted blunder.

Some members of the public from the onset considered Libercell as underdog of the GSM Company, but following a couple of months, the company showed signs of credibility, quality, and affordability "proving skeptics wrong because they are going places other GSM companies have not reached or are not yet clear enough," says Joanna Baysah-way, who recently changed to using Libercell.

Agrees Steven Bah-T, a teacher who said he had only decided recently to 'forget the others and switch to Libercell'.

"If I could call someone in LAC, Maryland and Bomi with ease and with clarity, why should I bother with other GSM phones," asked Naomi Dickerson. "Libercell is sufficient," he averred.