High-speed Internet gap between rich and poor widening, UN warns
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (APP): While the “digital divide” between rich and poor countries may be shrinking, the gap is widening between the developed and developing worlds in the availability of broadband or high-speed Internet, a crucial tool for achieving development goals, a top UN official said today.
“Australia, for example, a country with 21 million people has more
broadband subscribers than the whole of Africa [a continent with nearly
900 million inhabitants],” UN Under-Secretary-General for
Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka told the fourth
World Electronic Media Forum in Mexico City, according to a press
release issued at UN Headquarters in New York.
He stressed that enhanced broadband connectivity can improve access to
life-saving health care and information, provide opportunities for
skills development and lifelong learning, lower costs for business, and
connect farmers to markets, migrants to their families, and citizens to
their governments.
“A person in a developed country is on average 200 times more likely
than someone in a least developed country to enjoy high-speed access to
the Internet,” he said, noting that in the case of Internet use, more
than half of the developed world population is now online, compared to
only 15 per cent in developing countries. At the start of this year,
there were about 4 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide.
“Mobile phones have become one of the most equitably distributed ICTs
(information and communication technology),” Akasaka said. “This is
good news. But while the “digital divide” between rich and poor may be
shrinking, it is still a major concern.
World 
