The new goal for African telcos is becoming technology platforms not just old goody mobile carriers. Twenty-five years ago when Mohammed Ibrahim was setting up MSI Cellular Investments, the mobile network provider better known as Celtel, in Africa, few people thought mobile phones had a future in Africa. But the Doubting Thomases were wrong and the few hardy believers like Mo were right. From a few thousand telephone connections in the late 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa has today become the epicentre of the GSM mobile phone revolution.