Even 15 years ago my brother commented about working in a poor village in central America. See some guy walking a donkey with a load of supplies while on his cell phone is really odd.
I read that in Haiti after the earthquake(?), storm(?) or both that the cell phone towers are the first thing the government gets running. So the government can provide soothing, false information and maintain control.
Going back 2 decades, I heard that phone communications in Eastern Europe and the Middle East weren’t so hot but that both regions leapfrogged technology and went cellular.