I will give an example of how poor people will use telecommunications to increase their standard of living based on my understanding of poverty problems in a Central American country. A campesino in a rural area has been offered 1000 pesos for 10 bushels of corn by a middleman who declares his corn to be of "low quality". He calls his friend in the capital and learns chicken farmers in the area are paying 5000 pesos for 10 bushels of corn of "commercial quality". After calling his friend and the chicken farmer he decides to ship the corn to the capital and is able to sell it for 3500 pesos. He also talks with other friends and learns how to improve the quality of his corn, learns where to buy small grain storage systems so he can sell his corn when the price is higher, and learns that he can make even more money by raising chickens with his corn (1 lb of chicken takes 2 lbs of corn and sells for the price of 4 lbs of corn.) The use of telecommunications has helped the campesino increase his income by a factor of four.