Looking at global broadband the digital divide has a different shape
If you believe as I do that broadband Internet access is qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from dialup access (see this Pew report and this ethnographic report in the UK from iSociety for some examples) then this recent global suvey of broadband access gives pause for thought.
Of the 128m broadband users worldwide, 53m are Asian, 42m are in the Americas and 32.8m are in Europe. While user growth in Asia is a little slower than elsewhere it is still well ahead in overall numbers and it will be interesting to see what difference this makes to the domestication of Internet in those countries and perhaps to their power in Internet governance debates. Sadly Africa seems as ‘digitally divided’ as ever, no matter how you look at it. The report lumps the Middle East and Africa together with ‘nearly 1m’ subscribers. And I’d be prepared to bet most of them are either white South Africans or wealthy Arabs and Israelis.
As to Europe, to my surprise, France (which has historically lagged behind in overall Internet penetration - see ITU) has the largest number of broadband subscribers in Europe - 5.27m (though Germany has 5.26m and the UK has 5m). Broadband prices in Europe have apparently dropped by 23% since the beginning of 2004. I hope this year brings continuing falls to the point where it no longer makes financial sense for Internet users to stick to dial-up…
December 13th, 2004 at 6:08 pm
I was amazed years back in Paris, when all my friends had this strange box on the table, by the laptop. It tuned out to be a cable modem, you know, those that allow oyu to be on the phone and surf le reseau at the same time. My impression was then that France was about to bypass the internet entirely, and get the next version. Impression confrmed by the fact the French sites are bad, boy, are they bad. No demand, no supply.
Italy is dong well on broadbandm 120% increase last year, and fierce competition right now (though Christms is looming). If my Italain cousin Andrea got broadband, and she swears she has, this is the second coming of the Internet. Beware. Be ready.
December 14th, 2004 at 12:28 pm
I’m not sure the “qualitative” element will hold up, though - my brother, just returned from South Africa, tells me that broadband access there is metered, not flat rate. And look at the advantage that flat-rate dialup gave the US versus the metered UK usage.
December 15th, 2004 at 1:17 pm
Yes, I think a good part of broadband’s charm is its lack of metering. So far in Europe metered broadband hasn’t really taken off I believe. Some of the ISPs have begun to produce “caps” beyond which you start to incur additional charges (inevitable I think) but these caps are set pretty high. See this about bargain broadband and this about that ethnographic report from my personal weblog.