sen monorom, Mondolkiri province – Government messenger Ly Champa coaxed her Honda motorcycle along the muddy streets on a recent morning with a satchel full of mail from Phnom Penh slung over her shoulder.
Slow and reliable, her low-budget operation is the government’s mail service in the provincial capital and one of the only ways for people here to reach friends in distant towns.
More than seven hours from Phnom Penh by road—but only in the rare instances when the road is in good condition—Sen Monorom is one of the country’s most remote settlements. Independent living and rugged lifestyles are the norm here—far from the bright lights and infrastructure of modern cities.
There are no Internet cafes, just one landline phone (in a government office that’s not open on the weekend) and regular airplane service was canceled more than a year ago due to lack of interest.
So it came as a shock to the system when MobiTel erected a transmission tower here more than a year ago.
Schedules, conversations, attitudes changed.
“Before we had to go around locally and find everyone if we wanted to have a meeting,” said Phillipe Guyant, a doctor who works for the local Medicine du Monde office.
Stretched across a highland plateau that turns emerald green under the constant rains of the wet season, Sen Monorom runs several kilometers from one end to the other. Even delivering a simple message this time of year means venturing out into the rain and peculiar mud of Mondolkiri, which makes a slick sheen across roadways that can topple motorcycles and send four-wheel-drive vehicles sliding uselessly into the bushes.
Not everyone can afford the new telephone service, and many of the poorest people here live beyond the 3-km-to-15-km range of the tower installed in Sen Monorom. MobiTel counted 450 subscribers to its service at the end of June, according to General Manager David Spriggs. A second tower was erected by Shinawatra last year but is so far inoperable.
Despite the relatively low mobile phone business, many community leaders, like Police Chief Reach Samnang, are on the MobiTel network.
“When we have a complex problem, and we want to get some ideas, some suggestions from the city, we call Phnom Penh,” he said. “Sometimes the ministry has an emergency meeting and they don’t have time to send a letter by mail, so now they call us.”
If an emergency required it, the police chief had to use an ICOM radio to call Phnom Penh.
It’s cheap—just 3,000 riel ($0.75) per use—but can only tap a radio network in Phnom Penh and requires going to the small office near his house to call in.
Guest house owner Mrs Deu said she got a phone as soon as the network was turned on in November 2000.
Mrs Deu runs one of the busiest of Sen Monorom’s 10 guest houses, the Pich Kiri, and is a booster of tourism.
The phones have been available for a while, and most everyone who planned to buy one has done so. Hok, the owner of the only store in Sen Monorom that sells phones, said he sees fewer customers these days.
“The number of people who have the capacity to get the phone have it already,” he said.
Now he sells just one new phone a month. The business gets by selling phone cards to his regular customers, which he says number about 150. There are three other stores in town that sell phone cards.
Meanwhile, Ly Champa said she doesn’t plan to stop delivering messages. Even though the phones have made it easier for people to talk to each other, there’s still plenty of business.
“I am not concerned about this,” she said. “Everyone will still use this service to send their documents.”
