Posted on 11/13/2007 12:58:45 PM PST by NormsRevenge
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Now that more than 1 billion people use the Internet, international policymakers and computing experts are struggling with how to link the world's other 5 billion to the increasingly crucial network.
"Ten years ago, to talk about 1 billion Internet users sounded exaggerated, unthinkable, but now we talk about the next billion," said Markus Kummer, the official heading a U.N. forum here Tuesday on governing the Internet. "It is clear sooner or later we will reach that number. It is also clear that next billion will be poorer than the first."
The U.N. created the annual Internet Governance Forum, which has no decision-making power, to discuss emerging issues such as spam, cheaper Internet access and international differences over operating the network.
The challenges to expanding the network to less-developed regions are daunting. Technology costs and government regulations stand in the way. Or there are questions about how to produce Web content in local languages and combat illiteracy.
In some parts of the world even access to electricity is an issue.
Internet use already is spreading rapidly in the less-well-off nations that hold nearly three-fourths of the world's population: Internet use has risen to 35 percent in those lands, up from 5 percent a decade ago, according to conference organizers.
Still, fewer than 4 percent of Africans have Internet access and less than 1 percent have broadband links. And bringing the Web to areas such as Pacific island nations are complicated by small, isolated populations spread out over vast distances.
"Financing is the heart of the problem," said Mouhammet Diop, CEO of Next.sn, an Internet consulting firm in Senegal. "We should think of new forms of financing the information society."
He said the region's impoverished nations need to work together in building up Internet infrastructure they cannot afford on their own.
There are competing ideas of how to find that financing, and how big a role governments should play.
Jacquelynn Ruff, a vice president for Verizon Communications Inc., urged governments to seek private investment with a "transparent and stable regulatory environment and respect for the rule of law, a commitment to encouraging competition."
But many argue that access for remote rural areas will come only with government involvement, perhaps by teaming with private companies to include fiber optic cables with railroads, pipelines and other infrastructure projects.
Anita Gurumurthy, executive director of IT for Change, a network of information technology professionals based in Bangalore, India, criticized calls to focus on private financing, saying the Internet should be seen as a public priority, like health or education.
It's possible that some people may not even need computers to reach the Internet, said Valerie D'Costa of infoDef, a program at the World Bank in Washington. She suggested mobile phones might be the answer for many, especially in countries where the devices are already popular.
The only things the UN tackles are buffets , strip clubs and piles of kickback money.
I would think a priority for Africa would be access to clean water rather than internet access.
Yes, the people waiting in bread lines in Zimbabwe need to have access. I bet that is their most pressing issue.
I think Africa's first three priorities would be the end if piracy off the coast of Smalia, the end of slavery in the Sudan (and anywhere else in Africa it rears it's ugly head) and the ens of the life of Robert Mugabe. The ANC can deliberate as to which is most important.
And re-introduction of DDT.
Can’t they just buy there own Walmart $200 Linux box? If they want connection, just pay for it.
What would an Aborigine do with an computer and an Internet connection? Eat it? Isn’t there an advisory out there cautioning people not to eat their iPhones? Maybe you need to cook this computer first.
Some are just not ready for Internet connection. But I smell another tax coming, just like the glow-bull warming tax to control the weather. Liberals are great at taxes, and thinking of new ways to spend others money.
What this article doesn’t say is that one primary goal of the UN is to steal control of the internet from the US. The US created the internet and allowed the rest of the world to join in. In return, the rest of the world is crying “foul” and saying the UN should control it.
The only thing that unites the third world is the desire to pillage everything the West has built. Once they accomplish that, they’ll go back to fighting amongst themselves.
“Broad Band in every shack”
Can these people even read? F#(& 'em.
ML/NJ
Bump!
And the Administration wants to hand these guys the right to tax the U.S. taxpayer with the Law of the Sea Treaty...
Absolutely = the governments HAVE a role to play.
It's called:
KEEP OUT!
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