Libyans spark cellphone revolution

What seems certain however is that soon customers will be laughing all the way to the talk-time kiosks as has started happening. The stage for this happy state of affairs was set early this year when the government sold 75 percent of its stake in the Zambia Telecommunications Company (Zamtel), the country's largest but up to that point virtually insolvent telecommunications company.

The buyers were the little-known Lap Green Networks of Libya. Up to that point, Zamtel's mobile telephone operation-Cell-Z- was the smallest and arguably the tamest and shakiest of the three.