[WSIS CS-Plenary] 'broadband gap'

[Michel Towa koh]

Developing countries falling into 'broadband gap'
Ola Al-Ghazawy



29 octobre 2009 |
EN





Much of the developing world is falling behind with broadband access
Flickr/abbesses

[CAIRO] Limited access to broadband Internet is crippling the
spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the
developing world and widening the already significant digital divide, a
report has warned.
Bandwidth availability is low and the cost of broadband
Internet is high in many developing countries, says 'Information
Economy Report 2009', released last week (22 October) by the UN
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Prices can reach more than US$1,000 per month in countries
such as Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan. Australia, a country with little
more than 20 million residents, has more broadband users than the whole
of the African continent.
This broadband gap deprives developing country
businesses of economic development opportunities such as call centres
and offshore offices.
"Broadband access is almost a must for companies with
international branches," Ahmed Ali, a software engineer at computing
giant IBM's Egypt branch, told SciDev.Net.
While major companies such as his use a satellite Internet
connection, smaller companies that provide offshore services for
businesses in other regions need a fast communication channel. 
"If broadband is not sufficient then it will be a problem for them and may hinder progress of their work," he says. 
But the mobile phone market is booming in the
developing world despite the economic crisis, the report found. Mobile
phone penetration reached 100 per cent in countries such as Bahrain,
South Africa and Qatar. Growth in mobile use increased more than
eightfold in less than ten years.
Mobiles are becoming the preferred mode of communication over landlines and are increasingly fulfilling ICT needs. 
"We now see three and four mobile service
providers opening up in these countries to fill demand. For many
people, it is becoming an important tool for business as well as
accessing the Internet," Ahmed Momtaz, a telecommunication engineer at
Vodafone Egypt, told SciDev.Net.
The report suggests governments can work with Internet providers to narrow the broadband gap by 
promoting competition to bring down prices and the sharing of
infrastructure to reduce costs by preventing duplicate efforts.
Governments can also promote Internet centres to offer access to people
in poorer regions. 
The UNCTAD report also calls for the expansion of underwater fibre optics network, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. 




UNCTAD/PRESS/PR/2009/055
22/10/09    

Report warns of widening broadband divide but sees strong mobile phone growth despite economic crisis



EMBARGO

The contents of this press release and the related Report must not be quoted or 

summarized in the print, broadcast or electronic 

media before 22 October 2009,17:00 [GMT]

(13:00 New York; 19:00 Geneva, 22:30 New Delhi, 020:00 - 23 October Tokyo)

Geneva, 22 October 2009 - Greater efforts are needed to narrow the broadband divide, UNCTAD says in its Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times (1).
The rapid spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
around the world, especially mobile phones, is beating the expectations
of most experts. Mobile telecommunications also appear to be weathering
the crisis relatively well. But there is a widening gap between the
developed and developing worlds in the availability of broadband
Internet. A person in a developed country is 8 times more likely to be
a broadband user than someone in a developing country. 

Digital inequality is shrinking, but gap varies by type of ICT

While fixed telephone subscriptions are now in slight decline,
mobile and Internet use continues to expand rapidly in most countries
and regions.

Comparing the diffusion of the different ICTs with the distribution
of income in the world shows that mobile telephony has become the most
equitably distributed ICT. At the end of 2008, there were about 4
billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. In many developed, developing
and transition economies, mobile penetration now exceeds 100
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. The penetration level in developing
countries is now eight times higher than what it was at the turn of the
century. The least developed countries raised their mobile penetration
from 2 per 100 inhabitants in 2003 to 20 in 2008. According to the new
UNCTAD report, between 2003 and 2008, the most dynamic economies in
terms of increased mobile penetration were Montenegro, Qatar, Bahrain,
and the Maldives, a least developed country (LDC) (chart 1). 

In the case of Internet use, more than half of the developed world
population is now online, compared to only 15% in developing countries.
The greatest improvements in Internet penetration since 2003 were
achieved in Andorra, Argentina, Latvia, and Colombia (chart 2). 
The digital divide is particularly pronounced in the case of
broadband. For example, Australia, a country with 21 million
inhabitants, has more broadband subscribers than the whole of Africa.
Average penetration in developed countries was more than eight times
higher than in developing countries. Moreover, a person in a developed
country is on average 200 times more likely than someone in a least
developed country to enjoy high-speed access to the Internet.

"There is still a long way to go before we can claim to have
significantly narrowed the "digital divide" to achieve an information
society for all. Wide gaps in ICT infrastructure remain, not least in
the case of broadband networks," UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon says
in the preface to the report.

The broadband divide is aggravated by smaller bandwidths and higher
costs in developing than in developed economies. However, the fastest
growing broadband markets are found in large emerging economies. China
has already emerged as the world´s single largest broadband market,
followed by the United States. During the period 2003-2008, the Nordic
countries achieved the highest growth in fixed broadband penetration.
The fact that no developing or transition economy reached the top 20
list is a vivid illustration of the widening gap in this area.

How to narrow the broadband divide?

Improved broadband connectivity can help to achieve various economic
and social development objectives, and governments play a critical role
by setting the terms for broadband roll-out. The UNCTAD report
suggests, for example, that operators should be encouraged to share
backbone infrastructure to avoid duplicative and fragmented low
bandwidth networks. To ensure sufficient supply at reasonable prices,
governments also need to ensure that operators are exposed to
competition. To achieve more widespread deployment of broadband
backbones and access networks in remote and sparsely populated areas,
governments can make use of universal access service funds and can
promote the establishment of public Internet access points or
telecentres. 

For international broadband access, countries have to connect with
undersea cable projects and, for landlocked countries, build out fibre
links to submarine cable landing stations in other countries. One
region that has been largely excluded from the mesh of undersea fibre
optic cables is sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world´s lowest level
of international Internet bandwidth per capita. As of mid 2009, there
were only two intra-continental undersea cables to this region: SAT-3
(running up the African west coast) and SEACOM (since July 2009 linking
East African countries with Europe and India). Several other
initiatives are under way, however.

Mixed impacts of economic crisis

Mobile telecommunications in developing countries stand a good
chance of weathering the current economic turbulence. For example, well
into 2009, subscriber growth remained strong in the two largest
developing-country mobile markets. During the first seven months of
2009, India registered almost 100 million new wireless subscriptions.
Mobile devices are increasingly replacing fixed lines for voice
communications in developing nations. They are also used for new
purposes - such as by small entrepreneurs - making them even more
desirable. The demand for mobile telephony in many developing countries
is thus likely to undergo further expansion, despite the crisis. The
production of IT and ICT-enabled services also appears to have been
relatively resilient (see UNCTAD/PRESS/PR/2009/056).

By contrast, the production of various ICT goods and services has
been seriously affected by the global recession. The volatile
semiconductor industry has been among the worst hit. Revenue growth
also turned negative for the largest makers of such IT equipment as
computers and consumer electronic devices. The same is true of the top
manufacturers of communication equipment. Over the medium to long term,
however, companies will continue to upgrade their ICT systems, as this
is essential for their competitiveness. If anything, the crisis has
made effective corporate use of ICTs, which improve efficiency, even
more important.





ANNEX
Tables and figures

Chart 1. The twenty most dynamic economies in terms of increased levels of mobile penetration, 2003-2008




Source: UNCTAD, Information Economy Report 2009, Figure I.4.;

Note: * 2003-2007 change. Mobile penetration: number of mobile
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. The bars indicate the change in
penetration level 2003-2008. For example, in the case of Qatar, the
penetration rose by 144, from 59 to 203 subscriptions per 100
inhabitants.


Chart 2. The twenty most dynamic economies in terms of increased Internet penetration, 2003-2008




Source: UNCTAD, Information Economy Report 2009, Figure I.7.;

Note: * 2003-2007 change. Internet penetration: number of users per
100 inhabitants. The bars indicate the change in penetration level
2003-2008. For example, in the case of Argentina, the penetration rose
by 35, from 15 to 50 users per 100 inhabitants.




Downloads [PDF]: 
| 
Information Economy Report 2009 (Only in English) [1805 KB, 153 Pages]
| 

 


Endnotes

1.The Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times
(Sales No. E.09.II.D.18, ISBN 978-92-1-112778-2) may be obtained from
United Nations Sales Offices at the below-mentioned addresses or from
United Nations sales agents in many countries. Price: US$ 60 (50%
discount for residents in developing countries and a 75% discount for
residents in least developed countries). Residents of countries in
Europe, Africa and West Asia may send orders or inquiries to: United
Nations Publication/Sales Section, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva
10, fax: +41 22 917 0027, e-mail: unpubli at un.org;
and those from the Americas and East Asia, to: United Nations
Publications, Two UN Plaza, DC2-853, New York, N.Y. 10017, U.S.A.,
telephone: 1 212 963 8302 or 1 800 253 9646, fax: 1 212 963 3489,
e-mail: publications at un.org. Internet: http://www.un.org/publications 



      
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