Revised "In Case of Emergency" ICE standard

The United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has adopted a revised form of the ICE "In Case of Emergency" procedure already used in some countries. Mobile phone users had previously been encouraged to store an emergency contact in their mobile phone prefixed with the letters ICE ("In Case of Emergency"). The new ITU standard recommends prefixing contact details with the numbers 01, 02, 03 and so on - making it more appropriate for non-English speaking people. The ITU is working with the ICE4SAFETY non-profit organisation to promote this new way of identifying an emergency contact. [Press release]

49% of the world has a mobile phone

There were 3.3 billion mobile phone users worldwide at the end of 2007, equivalent to a penetration rate of 49%, according to the International Telecommunications Union. Average worldwide growth was 22%, with Africa's subscriptions showing the largest gains: up 39% annually over the last two years. The ITU pointed out that nearly 90% of all telephone subscribers in Africa now use mobile phones. [Source: Cellular-News.com]

The majority of the world's population will soon have a mobile phone

The number of mobile phone users around the world will overtake the number of non-users in the next few months, according to a report from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union. Eight years ago, only 12% of the global population had a mobile phone. The ITU said the estimated figure of 3.3 billion subscribers was taken from operator figures and didn't take into account people who had more than one phone, unused accounts or people who shared their phone. Meanwhile, Telecom Trends International says the number of mobile subscriptions has gone well over three billion, but the number of users is 2.6 billion because many users have multiple devices or use multiple SIM cards. They reckon global mobile subscriptions will reach five billion by 2014, with 4.1 billion users. [Sources: AP via Google, Cellular-News.com]