In an open letter the ITU (International Telecom Union) urges G20 leaders, meeting in Mexico next week, to define targets making broadband affordable in all countries. ITU claims that Broadband (BB) is the remedy to recession and recommends top-priority targets:
- Universal BB policy – all countries should have BB plan
- Affordable BB – by regulation and/or market forces
- Connecting homes to BB – 40% of homes in developing countries
- Getting people online – 50% of population in developing countries should be Internet-literate
Providing affordable BB in developing countries is not a simple task. Take a look at the table below depicting two cases, serving a territory with population of 500,000 in developing vs. developed country.
Apparently, the transport cost, just to ensure reasonable ROI, is highly sensitive to physical distance and link utilization, rendering transport to developing countries extremely expensive. Carriers are therefore reluctant to invest in such links, making international data transport a monopoly exactly in those cases in need.
Regulation can only press vendors’ profit margins. Market forces are totally irrelevant in the developing world. Connecting developing countries to the world is therefore up to pseudo-philanthropy (a la World Bank), or to technological solutions changing the table above. And guess what – such are DiViCloud and DiViLive.
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