GLOBAL EFFORTS ON BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND THE ROLE OF ICT STANDARDIZATION ABSTRACT In the year 2000, at the dawn of the 21 st century, World Leaders from 189 States gathered at the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit to discuss the Millennium Development Goals. In order to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty by the year 2015, one of the resolves of the UN Millennium Declaration was to ensure that the benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are available to all. A digital divide between developed and developing countries was identified, a global effort to bridge this divide was set forth, but what has the world effectively accomplished upon this goal? How do new concepts such as the Internet economy and digital convergence relate to the task of bridging the digital divide? What is the role of ICT standardization in bridging the digital divide? This paper will shed some light on these issues. were still separate devices and neither could access the Internet at broadband speed, ICT visionaries foresaw a world where everyone would be seamlessly connected to each other all the time through portable devices accessing high-speed everywhere wireless networks. The year 2002 marked the point in which the number of mobile subscribers finally surpassed that of fixed telephones (Figure 1.1). Traditional fixed telephony subscribers were declining as cell phone handset prices and call rates dropped and the quality of mobile phone calls and its coverage area increased. The evolution of Internet networks and applications was also determinant to the decline of fixed telephony subscribers, as people started relying less on voice communication after the advent of fast access to the Internet and several alternative and cheaper means of communication through Internet Protocol, such as e-mail, Internet messenger, VoIP, among others. Keywords Digital divide, digital opportunity, Internet Economy, digital convergence, broadband networks, ICT Standardization 1. INTRODUCTION Member States and Sector Members of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), through Resolution 73 of the Plenipotentiary Conference of 1998 (PP-98), called attention to the fact that the issues of ICT development intertwine and directly intervene with those of economic, social and cultural development, and that the global society would eventually become an Information Society where ICTs would play a central role. Recognizing this fact and envisioning the makings of a global Internet-based economy, World Leaders from 189 States gathered at the 2000 United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit and resolved to ensure that the benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are available to all. The digital divide between developed and developing countries was a major concern in the minds of World Leaders of developed and developing countries alike, since there was a perception that the global economy was growing everyday more dependent on ICTs and the Internet and that economic prosperity was based on the integration and harmonious evolution of all economic agents in parallel. Even though, in 2000, fixed telephone lines greatly outnumbered mobile phone subscribers and Internet users (Figure 1.1), mobile phone networks worldwide were still divided between the 2G technologies of GSM, CMDA and TDMA, cell phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) Figure 1.1: Number of telephone subscriptions and Internet connections per 100 inhabitants, 1990-2006 [1]. Nowadays, several national markets, mostly in developed countries, already have mobile phone penetration rate of around 100% and declining rates of fixed telephone lines. In South Korea, the mobile phone penetration rate is 95% of the population; Finland and Australia show penetration rates of 115% and 102% respectively, meaning that the number of mobile phones surpasses the population in those countries [2]. The worldwide mobile phone market increased more than 300% since 2000. The increase in mobile phone ownership and usage is due not only to declining prices and increasing quality and coverage areas, but also due to the convergence of networks, services and applications into it. Mobile phones started being able to access the Internet, send e-mail and short messages, play music, videos and games, broadcast television channels, take pictures and store information, all this besides being a phone call device. 1
Modern cell phones don t even need to access the cell phone network to make a phone call: they can connect to the Internet through a Wi-fi network and be used as a VoIP device. At the same time, Internet usage worldwide has soared. The Internet has evolved to be the gateway for almost all information that circulates around the world. People started using the Internet not only for entertainment purposes, but also for knowledge, culture, socialization and, especially, for business. All businesses except the ones that were not making use of the Internet or were being substituted by it presented productivity, efficiency and agility increases though e-commerce, e-banking, e-trading, speeding up capital flow and allowing economic agents around the world to truly interact at real-time, making way for a period of great economic prosperity and development in the beginning of the 21 st century for almost every nation on the planet. The impact of the Internet on world economic prosperity in the last six years is so evident that the current economic cycle has been labeled as the Internet Economy. However, while the global economy has profited from the evolution of ICTs and millions of people have gained access to it, these benefits were not perceived equally in different parts of the globe. In Africa, for example, only 27% of the entire continent population had a cell phone by the end of 2007. Mobile phone technology has reached and connected millions of people in Africa, but 73% of Africans still did not have access to this technology. The Internet penetration rate was 5% and only 0.2% had access to broadband. Asia showed better overall numbers (37% mobile phone penetration rate, 17% of Internet users and 3% of broadband subscribers) but only due to some highly technological countries (i.e. South Korea, Japan and Singapore) pulling up the continent average [3]. The wealth gap between developed and developing countries is the determining factor of the digital divide. It reflects not only the gap in the availability of investment capital for research and development of new technologies, but also the gap in science, education and knowledge. Developing countries have trailed behind because they do not have the financial investment capabilities and human resources potential to develop new technologies on their own, making them highly dependent on global ICT public policies. They are basically trend-followers, not trendsetters. Furthermore, they have difficulties in absorbing the new ICT benefits, as new technologies tend to be expensive and unaffordable to most when they are just released and, mostly, because there are no public policies that determine the deployment of a new ICT in different parts of the globe: the deployment is driven basically by business and market decisions. These gaps in development potential and ICT ownership and usage compose the global digital divide. 2. ASSESSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE The digital divide can be defined as the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regards both to their opportunities to access ICTs and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities. There are two levels of digital divide: the first level is the vertical divide, which is the gap between ICT users and non-users; the second level is the horizontal divide, which is the gap among ICT users. As the Internet has rapidly grown to underlie almost every aspect of the global economy, the term digital divide has often been referred to Internet access. Figure 2.1 shows that there was a great increase in Internet users worldwide from the year 2000 to 2007, but it also indicates that only one in every five people are Internet users. The huge disparity in Internet access between developed and developing countries is also evident. Considering that 85% of the world s population lives in developing countries, and that only 17% of them are Internet users, one could conclude that there is still much work to do in bridging the digital divide. Figure 2.1: Internet users per 100 inhabitants, 2000-2007 [3]. Breaking down the Internet users regionally (Figure 2.2) shows that Africa has a large vertical divide when compared to every other continent, only 5% of users, way below the 22% world average and eight times smaller than the number of Internet users in Europe. 2
Figure 2.2: Internet users per 100 inhabitants, by region, 2007 [3]. Although factors such as literacy, education and age affect Internet usage, studies have concluded that there is a great positive correlation between the Internet penetration rate and the per capita income, and that one of the most important reasons for the gap in Internet users is the affordability of equipments and services. Figure 2.3 illustrates that all countries above the US$10,000 per capita income mark have more than 10% of Internet users. Considering that broadband connectivity has become a cornerstone of the Internet Economy, extending high-speed access to all consumers, businesses and geographic areas is a complex challenge, as fixed and wireless broadband connections still bear high market prices. Figure 2.4: Mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants, 2000-2007 [3]. In 2006, the ITU, in collaboration with the Korean Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion (KADO) and the Ministry of Information and Communication of the Republic of Korea held jointly the Digital Opportunity Forum. Among its many outputs, the one that stands out is the creation of the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI), a benchmark index that measures the progress in opportunity, infrastructure and utilization of ICTs throughout the world. It considers the fixed and mobile telephony and Internet penetration rates, the affordability and coverage of these services and the installed infrastructure. The last survey presented the results in Figure 2.5 (it only shows the 25 top scorers). Figure 2.3: Relationship between Internet user penetration rate and Gross National Income per capita, 2005 [4]. Considering that the convergence of all ICTs to Internet Protocol platforms seems to be the current technological trend and that the number of mobile phone subscribers in developing countries has been increasing dramatically, mobile devices with Internet access could contribute importantly to bridging the digital divide. Also, convergence not only includes the ability of a single platform to carry a range of traditional services, it implies the creation of new applications, services and economic opportunities. Figure 2.4 shows the increase in mobile phone subscribers worldwide and that the mobile phones penetration rate in developing countries is almost reaching the 50% mark, way higher than the 17% of Internet users shown in Figure 2.1. Figure 2.5: Digital Opportunity Index, top 25 results, 2007 [5]. Of the top 25 DOI scorers, the only developing country is Estonia, at 24 th (Hong Kong and Macao are surveyed separately from China). Korea, having scored 5 th place in the e-government readiness index in 2005, and with the development of WiBro (Wireless Broadband), DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), Broadband 3
Convergence Networks (BCN) and Ubiquitous Sensors Networks (USN) in Seoul, among many other homegrown technologies, comes as no surprise at the top of the DOI ranking. 3. NATIONAL STRATEGIES ON BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE As it turns out, the challenge of bridging the digital divide lies on providing affordable and non-discriminatory access to ICT devices and applications and to the Internet, but how can it be done? If this task is left to the market, assuming that the competition and the increase in supply will cause drops in prices, marginal areas such as rural, isolated and low-income areas will suffer from being late ICT adopters and will not benefit from the productivity and knowledge gains of adopting the latest released technologies. In other words, the market alone, due to its failures and to the monopolistic nature of certain telecommunication services cannot guarantee that people will have universal access to ICTs and to the Internet. Governments, on the other hand, should have direct interest in bridging the digital divide to the full extent, as the Internet has become a powerful driver of innovation, growth and productivity, providing opportunities for significant improvement in diverse areas, including the environment, health care, education and public services. The Internet and ICTs have proven to be great tools to shorten both the economic and educational gaps between developed and developing countries. A highly technological government that utilizes the Internet to provide public services to the population shows reduced operational costs and gains of productivity compared to others, which leaves more capital for direct investment in the economy, increasing its Gross Domestic Product and the per capita income. It also boosts the government s resources for investment in education and health, improving the well being of its population. However, in order to foster a creative, prolific, entrepreneurial and affordable ICT environment, governments face several challenges. The telecommunications sector must be privatized and rightfully regulated by an autonomous and financially independent regulatory authority that will promote and facilitate the development of a competitive market and protect and empower the consumers. This regulatory authority should enforce universal services obligations on the coverage of key telecommunications services such as fixed and mobile telephony and high-speed broadband in lower household income, isolated and under-served areas. Policy-makers should, by all means possible, foster the installation of a modern and up-to-date telecommunications infrastructure that can house the latest available technologies. This infrastructure should be made available to all competent incumbents in order to promote competition and diversity in telecommunications, Internet services, products and applications that, in the end, will benefit the consumers with more choice, more competitive prices and higher quality of service. Governments should also promote e-literacy through education and specific programs, to give the population the knowledge necessary to handle all the influx of information available through the ICT networks. Users should be able to be active drivers of the changes taking place in the market and stimulate investment and innovation from the service providers, if they have the necessary literacy and if the market is open and competitive enough. By empowering the population with the knowledge to understand and utilize new ICTs, governments also change the relationship between suppliers and consumers, as the latter can, for example, compare prices in the Internet and choose from a plethora of different suppliers. This causes a downward pressure on prices and creates opportunities for new userdriven business models. If the population has access to the Internet, either by owning a broadband connection at their households or by going to the local Internet shop, a special emphasis should be put on providing public services through e-government. In the past, services such as filling the income tax declarations, registering children into school, applying for health care and requesting documents took several hours of the citizens time in commuting to government premises and in lines waiting for their turn. On the government side, it meant allocating a large amount of people to handle all the citizens requests and papers, resulting in high operational costs and inefficiency. With the advent of e- government, these services can be provided online, demanding much less workforce and expenditure and giving citizens more time to spend on more productive tasks. By digitalizing and providing all public services online, governments also make the information more available to the public and to audit processes, giving them transparency and accountability and leaving less openings for corruption and personal appropriation of public resources. Furthermore, easier to handle information also gives public-policy makers a leverage when planning public policies and projects. This was just a brief summary of policies to bridge the digital national at national levels; much more has been planned and is already implemented in several nations around the world, with varying degrees of success. While there have been remarkable developments in mobile phone penetration and Internet access by the implementation of these strategies, there is still much to be accomplished, especially in the least developed countries. Many of the questions raised by the international community on bridging the digital divide, however, cannot be dealt at a domestic level: being cross-border issues and issues of global concern, they demand a global debate with the participation of all stakeholders. 4
4. GLOBAL EFFORTS ON BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE Major efforts on bridging the digital divide were set forth by literally dozens of international stakeholders in several international forums. This section will focus on the UN/ITU efforts. After the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the UN has spearheaded a variety of global efforts on bridging the digital divide. In 2001, the 56 th session of the UN General Assembly released Resolution 56/183 in which World Leaders decided on the realization of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) at the highest possible level in two phases, the first in Geneva in 2003, and the second in Tunis in 2005, pursuant to resolution 73 adopted by the Plenipotentiary Conference of the ITU at its 1998 session. The ITU, the UN agency for Information and Communication Technologies, was appointed to assume the leading managerial role in the executive secretariat of the Summit and its preparatory process. In 2002, the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-02) held by the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) issued Resolution 30, about the preparations for WSIS and the implementation of its outcomes, and Resolution 37, in which Member States ask the ITU-D to create a set of benchmark indicators for the digital divide, to identify key ICT applications in rural areas and to work with the ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) to study various frequency band options for rural wireless communications, among other resolves. Later that year, the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-02) of the ITU revised Resolution 73 of PP-98, that determined the organization of WSIS, and issued Resolutions dealing with the digital inclusion of women, disabled people and the elderly, Internet Protocolbased networks, management of domain names and addresses and bridging the digital divide. The first phase of WSIS generated the Geneva Declaration of Principles in which turning the digital divide into digital opportunity was set as a common goal for the people of the world. It also nominated several issues that are of global concern, including network openness and network neutrality, protection of Intellectual Property Rights, protection of data and privacy, information security and network security, cyber crime, spam, Internet governance and the management of Internet resources, linguistic diversity, among others. The Geneva Plan of Action defined 11 action lines by which the world should tackle the challenge of enabling the Information Society. The ITU was assigned as the main moderator and facilitator for action lines C2 (Information and Communication Infrastructure) and C5 (Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs). At the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly of 2004 (WTSA-04), the Member States of the ITU-T issued several Resolutions on matters relating to the standardization aspect of bridging the digital divide and the implementation of the outcomes of WSIS, as did the 2008 edition of the WTSA (WTSA-08). By the time of the second phase of WSIS (2005), more than 2500 projects in the framework of the Summit had been launched. The Tunis agenda deriving from the second phase further reinforced the commitments made at Geneva (2003) and defined the financial mechanisms for meeting the challenges of ICTs, the principles of Internet governance and the directives for implementation of WSIS outcomes and follow-up. A Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) was established and the Summit asked the UN Secretary- General to establish the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a multi-stakeholder Internet governance policy dialogue. The IGF held meetings in 2006 (Greece), 2007 (Brazil) and 2008 (India). The World Telecommunication Development Conference of 2006 (WTDC-06) issued Resolutions concerning the creation of mechanisms for enhancing cooperation on cyber security and combating spam, the digital inclusion of indigenous communities in the world, the optimal integration of ICTs and its applications. The 2006 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-06) defined bridging the digital divide as one of the seven main goals of the ITU for the period 2008-2011. The issued Resolutions dealt with the evolving role of standardization in bridging the digital divide, strengthening the role of the ITU in building confidence and security in ICTs and building an inclusive Information Society, the implementation of the outcomes of WSIS the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the implementation of the outcomes of WSIS. Still in 2006, as mentioned in Item 2, the ITU in collaboration with the Republic of Korea created the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI). Since then, the DOI has become a tracking tool of the efforts in bridging the digital divide and building the Information Society. 5. THE ROLE OF ICT STANDARDIZATION The importance of ICT standardization for digital inclusion has been highlighted in several occasions, in different forums. Paragraph 44 of the WSIS Geneva Declaration of principles, for example, defined standardization as one of the essential building block of the Information Society. In fact, standards are fundamental not only for ICT standardization, but mainly from a purely economic point of view. The definition of standards and guidelines for the development of new technologies allows for economies of scale in production and distribution, keeping prices low and facilitating access to the global market, with the advantage 5
that standards-compliant products and services will work in standards-compliant systems anywhere in the world. The definition of market standards enhances the interoperability, interconnection and global connectivity of networks and services; it provides a solid base for further innovation and differentiation and makes technologies accessible to a wider range of people. As mentioned in Item 1, one of the facets of the digital divide is the lack of financial and human resources in most developing countries to develop new ICT technologies on their own. This leaves them with only one alternative: implementing ICTs created in developed countries. The question is: does that foreign technology comply with the technical standards of the infrastructure installed in this specific developing country? How can developing countries increase the probability that international ICTs will be easily implemented in their context? This can be achieved if the development standards of new technologies are discussed by all stakeholders prior to their development. The standardization of ICTs has contributed to solve a large amount of global issues on the efforts of bridging the digital divide. Figure 5.1 shows a series of selected developments in the ICT field from 1998 to 2008. The best way to ensure that they are affordable is to utilize industry standards so the economies of scale are transferred to final consumers through final lower prices. The transition to IP version 6 (IPv6) and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) are other examples of standardization issues that have a major impact on bridging the digital divide. The depletion of the IPv4 addresses is expected within the next few years, and to house the billions of new Internet users and convergence devices and ubiquitous sensors that are expected to access the Internet, the migration to IPv6 is necessary. The implementation of IDNs are also of fundamental importance, as the majority of people excluded from the Information Society do not communicate using Latin characters, and, currently, addressing in the Internet is done by URLs coded in Latin characters. Standardization efforts also are being taken on the issues of the evolution of the numbering system and its convergence with IP-based systems/networks, the role of ICTs on climate change, the accessibility of the disabled people and the elderly and security issues such as spam and cyber security. The converged networks emerging from the standardization work are transforming the international networking environment and enabling access to a wide variety of Internet and other network services around the world. Standardization also helps to accelerate the application of new technologies and services and regulate market order and operation, thus providing a strong driving force and support for the ICT industry. 6. CONCLUSION Figure 5.1: Selected developments in the Internet Economy, 1998-2008 [6]. Some of the innovations highlighted in the convergence line have become standards for the industry. Wi-Fi, for example, is the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) communication protocol based on the IEEE 802.11 standard that is used by every computer wireless network in the world. Computer and wireless devices manufacturers know that, in order for their devices to communicate, they need to use that industry standard. Next-Generation Networks (NGN) standardization is another example. The development of standards in NGN will allow voice, video and data services are to convergence towards platforms based on the Internet Protocol. As mentioned in Item 2, mobile devices with Internet access could contribute importantly to bridging the digital divide, but in order to facilitate access to these devices, they should be affordable. The implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit of the Information Society and the objectives contained in the Tunis Agenda have become the focus of global stakeholders on bridging the digital divide and digital inclusion efforts. These tasks have to be tackled from many fronts, such as economic and trade barriers, sector regulation, legal frameworks, human rights, physical infrastructure, information flow and information security. Public-policy makers and technicians throughout the world have contributed with their expertise in the many facets of this task but, still, many challenges lie ahead: Enhancing trade policy to handle barriers placed by domestic regulations on the cross-border exchange of online applications and services on the Internet; Adapting regulations to the rapid development of the convergence of ICT platforms, NGN and high-speed Internet access, as existing approaches are often inadequate to respond to rapid changes in markets; Educating the workforce of developing countries to facilitate their entry into the ICT industry; Creating incentives for investment in high-speed communications infrastructures and next generation networks, as well as new media and ICTs; 6
Enabling a stable, reliable and trusted infrastructure capable of addressing and responding to emerging risks and threats; Promoting sustainable economic growth, while taking care of climate change, aging society and energy efficiency issues; Creating recognized international standards that are established through transparent, market-driven, consensus-based mechanisms; Bridging the standardization gap between developed and developing countries, so their views and specific needs are taken into account in the global ICT standardization talks. Bridging the digital divide and digital inclusion are formidable goals set forth by the United Nations in order to eradicate poverty by the year 2015. Meeting these challenges will require that all stakeholders work together and share a common vision of the future of the Information Society. REFERENCES [1] United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, pp. 48, 2008. [2] ITU Development Sector (ITU-D) website, ICT eye, http://www.itu.int/itu-d/icteye/ [3] ITU Development Sector (ITU-D) website, ICT statistics, http://www.itu.int/itu-d/ict/statistics/maps.html [4] International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Information Society Report 2007: Beyond WSIS, pp. 28, 2007. [5] ITU Development Sector (ITU-D) website, Digital Opportunity Index (DOI), http://www.itu.int/itu- D/ict/doi/index.html [6] Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Shaping policies for the future of the Internet Economy, pp. 38, 2008. 7