Great input!!

They've all got internet connectivity, that's one of our minimum requirements. But it's not WiFi, it's all via the mobile network.

The part we're not sure about is how the MNOs handle the network traffic. Basically, people buy "bundles" (ripped off by the MNOs) and they don't provide them with unlimited data. These bundles exclude different types of traffic, for example, there could be a bundle that includes WhatsApp, but not YT (streaming).

Since lightning could "easily" replace MoMo, it actually competes with them directly and we're pretty sure they will find a way to block it if it becomes successful. But it could be that the packets on the network level are indistinguishable from other packets (haven't gone that deep yet), which would make lighting censorship resistant.

Just to explain the flow of transactions, a lot of these villagers are helped by relatives who work in the city or even abroad. So the monthly top-up is usually provided remotely with no PoS involved. The problem here (when comparing fiat to lightning) is this is normally where they take those funds and go and buy something. With sats they would be stuck unless the shop accepts it. So, if they accept sats, then the flow continues and people can actually send sats to each other (that are not sourced from wealthier people outside the village) because they know that anyone else will be able to spend them in the shop.

However, everyone including the shop (which usually is just a market stall) will be using internet from the mobile network and not WiFi. So if it only uses data when you spend, then that would be fine, but if it's constantly pinging the network and running in the background then that would be a real issue as it would spend all their data very quickly.