> I agree that the tech's complex, but the R&D for the stuff I'm talking about has been over and done with for at least thirty five years.
Sure, but now have a look at the infrastructure that's physically deployed. Hell in Germany (!), it took until 2020 to finally disable the old and truly horribly aged ISDN infrastructure. When it takes the third-richest nation by GDP that long to replace technology, I am not going to demand better from nations that are a few dozen places below us on the economy rankings.
> I don't see how that's the problem of "The West"? If it's actually a problem, instruct "Western" telecoms to send a couple-hundred-million dollars in last-gen equipment, along with the techs required to install it and let them declare its original purchase price and the full cost of the manpower as a tax credit.
Yeah good luck with getting that past our populations that, no matter if we're talking about the US or Europe, have been riled up by the local far-right and Russia that foreign aid is a bad thing and "national wealth should stay in the nation" (with the end result of course being that Russia has swooped in to replace our foreign aid, and that's why we see so many putsches in Africa).
> But, like, we've had satellite telecommunications for nearly sixty years, terrestrial microwave transceivers for a couple of decades longer, and short- and long-wave transceivers for far, far longer than either.
Sure! But the fact remains that it took a lot of effort to get telephones and their infrastructure deployed effectively worldwide.
> Additionally... I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not uncommon to have a satellite phone in your pocket these days.
In developed economies, sure. But in countries where the iPhone models capable of that (or an outright Starlink terminal) can cost a full year's wages? In South Sudan, the yearly corrected purchase power is about 716 $ per person and year [1].
[1] https://gfmag.com/data/economic-data/poorest-country-in-the-...