Media News - Friday, September 03, 2010

UN reveals global disparity in broadband access

The global disparity in fixed broadband access and cost has been revealed by UN figures. The Central African Republic is the most expensive place to get a fixed broadband connection, costing nearly 40 times the average monthly income there. Macao in China is the cheapest, costing 0.3 percent of the average monthly income. Niger becomes the most expensive place to access communication technologies, when landlines and mobiles are also taken into account. The statistics were released ahead of the UN 2010 Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York on 19 September. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of targets intended to reduce global poverty and improve living standards by 2015. Access to communications technology is a part of one of the targets. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) estimates that fixed broadband penetration is below 1 percent in many of the world's poorest countries, whilst access costs can be more than 100 percent of monthly average incomes. By contrast, in the world's most developed economies, around 30 percent of people have access to broadband at a cost of less than 1 percent of their income. As a result, in many poorer countries cheaper mobile communications have become the dominant way of accessing information. Innovative projects have been set up to deliver healthcare and other key services such as banking via mobile and text message. ITU Secretary General Dr Hamadoun Toure is trying to encourage all countries to have a framework that enshrines broadband as a public service to which every citizen should have access. Currently more than 30 countries have agreed. (BBC News)

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