12,000,000 people in Malaysia own a mobile phone, which is about half the population.
About half of these 12,000,000 pay in advance, don't sign a contract and don't have to give any ID.
There are two strange things that happen as a result. One is that, because the rates are so high (about 10 times what they are in the UK), people soon run out of credit on their mobiles so they resort to using SMS which is free.
Therefore, nobody ever says 'Phone me', or 'I will phone you back'.
They all say 'Send me an SMS'.
The other strange thing is that there seems to be an awful lot of people sending obscene, blasphemous or downright libellous text messages, secure in the knowledge that they can't be traced.
This has got so serious that it is being discussed in parliament and a change in the law is being proposed to require people to give some ID when they buy a paid-if-advance phone.
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