The growing consensus is that in the New Economy access to knowledge is critical for economic success. Unfortunately the economic power of the Internet is not equally distributed. Recent Internet usage statistics show that there are currently 429 million Internet users worldwide. This number is actually small when considered in context. Of that 429 million, 41 percent are in North America; in fact, the United States has more computers than the rest of the world combined! These 429 million users actually represent only 6 percent of the world’s entire population. The following breakdown shows just how uneven Internet usage is across the world’s regions.

Of the online population:

•   Only 4 percent are located in South America

The importance of Internet access will further divide the world’s population into two main groups—those having access and those who do not.

The poorest members of society suffer based on three primary assumptions:

•   The poor cannot afford to buy the necessary equipment needed to be connected to the Internet.

•   The infrastructure of developing countries may be so poor that a significant portion of the population is not able to connect even if equipment is available.

•   The poor may not be literate enough to make use of equipment and connectivity even when available.

The issue of the digital divide is beginning to evolve into a drive towards realizing the digital dividend. The digital dividend focuses on how to use technology to improve the economic possibilities of global society.

Some of the key principles that will enable a digital dividend include:

• Access vs. ownership. The assumption that users must purchase equipment to have access to the Internet must be challenged. In the New Economy the true economic benefit comes from access to sources of knowledge and competence, not from ownership of the access device.

A phenomenon is developing in several developing countries where the trend is for individuals with equipment and access to create a business around providing access. Local entrepreneurs in India (mostly women) are operating payper-use telephone services that provide traveling access to remote and other underserved areas. With little more than a mobile phone, these entrepreneurs have made access to the telephone possible for a large number of urban poor and people in remote villages. Many are now adding fax and PC services to their portfolio of services.

• Rational trade offs. While many of us would opt for direct own
ership of a PC or cellular phone, trading currency for convenience, the poor make an equally logical trade-off by exchanging personal convenience for low-cost, no-investment access.

This approach may also make sense for those who are able to purchase, because technology seems to advance at a rate that quickly makes equipment obsolete!

In an age of ever-changing PC features, individual ownership may not be the best choice after all.

• The connectivity leapfrog. Many developing countries have never had far-reaching telephony systems due in part to the cost of infrastructure needed to cover sparse or difficult terrain. Without a legacy wireline system in place, users are unable to access even simple communications. With infrastructure costs less than half that of a wireline system, wireless is becoming the telephony system of choice for many regions that lack existing copper connections to homes and businesses. The Wireless Internet will help overcome connectivity  issues  in  countries  that  lack  adequate  physical wiring.

• Multimedia literacy. It’s well known that the Internet started as largely an English-language medium to the exclusion of many languages,  especially  those  that  use  a  non-Arabic alphabet. The tide is slowly turning and more Web sites are publishing content in local languages.

The move towards multimedia will also help alleviate this issue for those who are not able to read text but can communicate  verbally  and  visually.  Many  cultures  have  unique dialects that are difficult and costly to translate into text but that can be published at lower cost in a voice format.
Multimedia will enable communication to take place in ways that accommodate the needs of the user by integrating text, audio, and video in ways that the individual user can utilize.

WIRELESS BRIDGES THE DIVIDE

A Wireless Internet can play an important role in transforming the digital divide into the digital dividend. The flexibility of wireless infrastructure allows carriers to provide coverage in difficult terrain as well as access in established buildings with minimal labor and installation  time.  Equipment costs are much less than for the PCs typically used to access the fixed

Internet; therefore the Wireless Internet is more accessible for those who wish to own the access equipment for personal use as well as for pay-per-use businesses. Remote users in developing countries will benefit from the mobility and freedom of smaller more portable devices that can be easily transported from village to village. Although Wireless Internet access is more limited than fixed, PC-based access, many countries will benefit from the use of wireless access services as an important part of the digital dividend solution.