How to make the web go worldwide
Posted on: May 31, 2008
Only one billion people out of the six billion-strong world population have internet access. So what is being done to connect up all the world’s citizens?
In South Korea more than 70% of homes have a high-speed broadband connection. It is probably one of the most connected areas on earth, with the possible exception of California and other localised parts of the US.
Contrast that with Africa where out of a population of close to a billion people about 3.6% have net access and only 0.1% have broadband speeds.
Often people say Africa needs food and water more than it needs broadband access and that may be true, in part, but the global economy is becoming reliant on the net and without access how can countries ever hope to be able to clothe, house and feed their citizens?
It has taken a few decades for the net to reach a billion people, but how long will it take to reach two billion and where will those new net users be found?
Jim Dempsey, of the US Center For Democracy and Technology, said: “The next 500 million will be easy because it will all come from China.”
Speaking at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens, he said: “The other 500 million will be spread around the world. I worry particularly about Africa being left behind here.
“The hard problem, in my view, is Africa.”
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Africa is not alone in struggling to keep pace with the online world – there are similar problems in parts of Asia, South America and the Middle East.
And often the problems are common: lack of technical infrastructure, telecoms monopolies who do not have the financial means or motive to invest in technology, lack of competition, inequality of access compared with the Western world and a lack of local compelling online services.
Craig Silliman, of network provider Verizon, said: “The number one factor in improving quality and price of access to networks is competition.
“Why is there not more competition in many countries? What are the barriers?”
Some at the conference felt access was needed to local loops – the local exchanges which effectively connect areas to the global net.
Interest in the net is growing fastest in Africa
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Vincent Waiswa Bagiire, director of CIPESA, an initiative to educate Africans about telecoms policy, said: “How can we get independent regulation to unbundle monopolies to increase competition?”
Professor Milton Mueller, of the Internet Governance Project, said the key to closing the infrastructure gap was the mobilisation of “local capital” so entrepreneurs on the ground could be helped to fund the much-need technology if big business was turning away.
Sam Paltridge of the OECD agreed: “Get a commercial core network built-out with competitive principles and then the government can, in an economical way, provide connectivity to schools and health centres.”
But should net access be left to private enterprise at all? Should national governments or international bodies like the United Nations step in?
Kishik Park, president of the IPv6 forum in South Korea, said: “The net should be treated as food or housing. Because the net today is not just a means to communicate ideas. It is a kind of daily infrastructure for every citizen.”
He argued that competition alone is not the answer.
“We must think about collaboration before competition.”
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