Extremely poor

Sri Lanka, May 22 -- Among them are 1.4 billion of the world's extremely poor people, who are also among the least connected to the benefits of ICTs. Their lives can be transformed as villages are connected to information and knowledge on the Internet - telemedicine is introduced to far-flung rural health centres and accurate weather information is made available to farmers and fishermen, to give a few examples.

Toure has called for global action to connect rural communities to the opportunities offered by ICTs.

Mobile phone penetration has already surpassed expectations - Sri Lanka alone has nearly 17 million subscribers, which is extremely good for a country with a population of 21 million. Globally, there are around five billion mobile subscribers.

However, broadband penetration for Internet access (mobile and fixed) is rather poor in most countries including Sri Lanka.

These countries do have an opportunity to leapfrog to newer technologies such as Long Term Evolution or 4G demonstrated in Colombo recently. Ensuring broadband access is one major issue that the ITU and individual governments have to address swiftly.

Fast broadband connectivity is essential to establish the information and communication highway that will IT-enable both urban centres and rural communities. Broadband telecommunications will make it possible to drive content to the remotest districts.

The ITU's Broadband Initiative is aimed at increasing the roll-out of this state-of-the-art technology.

The World Summit on the Information Society, which met in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005, called upon countries to consider establishing national mechanisms to achieve universal access in rural areas to bridge the digital divide.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka).

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