A key barrier to economic growth in the developing world is reliable access to the global information network: the Internet. A UN-sponsored study, “Information Economy Report 2005” by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, (PDF) shows that one of the features of the digital divide between the developing and the developed world has to do with the cost of high-bandwidth Internet access. The report says “that the smaller, low-income Internet markets in developing countries, particularly in Africa, have been unable to attract sufficient investment in infrastructure, which – combined with lack of competition – results in bandwidth cost that can be up to 100 times higher than in developed countries.”
We’re not dealing here with simply the lack of hardware and software, as the UN’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program might lead you to believe. Incidentally, the solution proposed by OLPC to the problem of the cost of Internet connectivity is to create mini-networks of OLPC users: “What about connectivity? Aren’t telecommunications services expensive in the developing world? When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.”
It’s precisely this problem of connecting to the “backbone of the Internet at very low cost” that is the major issue. The problem has to do with the strength of developing world economies in general, infrastructure issues in particular, and a host of other related complexities. This is not a simple lack of materials. You need a robust and healthy economy to support the kinds of investments and development costs associated with these kinds of infrastructure concerns.
For some irony on the situation of the developing world moving into the digital age, check out the “back-to-paper movement” in the developed world.