Published December 17, 1996
Third-world countries are beginning to embrace the Internet.
More computer Internet hosts are still located inside the U.S., representing 15% of the world’s population. The continents of South America, Africa, and Asia are tiny islands in Cyberspace. Globally, 186 countries now communicate with each other by E-mail.
Europe and Asia connects to the American Internet backbones at both US coasts, an inefficient path between neighboring foreign countries. The electronic landscape is changing.
MCI and British Telecom will install a high speed global backbone for the Net next year. Five will expand to twenty hubs in central locations around the world. Eventually Internet capacity will increase 30% to 1200 locations in 70 developing countries within Africa, Asia, South America, and thePacific.
The African continent suffers from the lowest teledensity (phone lines per population) anywhere: 12% of the global population, and 2% of the telephones.
AT&T and Alcatel are constructing Africa One. This ambitious project will employ an undersea cable surrounding the entire continent. First coastal localities and eventually all 41 African nations will link to the rest of the world through fiber-optic cable. Construction is hoped to be completed by 1999.
Ghana began commercial Internet service, gh.com, in 1993, resolving technical impediments with an international satellite earth-station. The mostly commercial 800 subscribers, growing at 100% per year, use the Net for overseas contact communications. 80% of accounts, costing $50 per month full access for unlimited use, pay for the satellite link.
Technological infrastructure improvement are often halted by the governing telecommunications regulations within each country. Telephone and postal service monopolies in third world countries often regard the Internet as threatening their existence.
India protects it’s monopolies by rigidly adhearing to telecom regulations that significantly restrict Internet access for their 900 million people.
In India, high-tech industry is first rate, and English is spoken. VSNL, a government corporation, is the only authorized public Internet access in India, charging exorbitant prices, limiting users. Yet the people’s demand for access is soaring.
The Peruvian network connected to the NSF backbone in 1994, with twenty-three major municipalities. Their people use the Internet from central facilities, cabinas, each with 40 computers and a printer. Everyone has their own E-mail account.
The Open Society Institute is a charitable foundation concerned with opening Internet access for developing countries. Established by Hungarian billionaire investor, George Soros, this philanthropic organization, circumventing bureaucracies, funds projects that attempt to aid the cause of freedom, peace, and economic development in Eastern Europe and South Africa.
In Romania, 100,000 people are on the Internet as a result of OSI. Romanians come to one of four facilities, rooms with computers equipped for full Internet services. A club in each city is given a common E-mail account for everyone. More than 200 schools plus hospitals, museums, and some businesses use the Network. In Romania, parents who desire a computer for their children, must sell their car. Sharing a computer is more advantageous than owning one.
Poorer countries of the world will benefit greatly by use of the Internet: a colonialism in reverse. Soon citizens of developing countries can acquire an endless supply of that precious commodity, information.