Measuring the Information Society 2012- A report on the telecom facilities available to the people in various countries in the world

The ITU(International Telecom Union) is the special agency of the United Nations for ICTs (information and communication technologies). Its headquarters is at Geneva (Switzerland). Its web address is www.itu.int.  It is publishing every year a report called “Measuring the Information Society” giving the details of the progress achieved in the reach of ICTs (Information and Communications Technologies) to the people in various countries in the world. It released its report titled “Measuring the Information Society, 2012” on 11^th October 2012.

Following are the important points in this report:

1. By the end of 2011, in the world as a whole, there were,:

(a)     600 crore mobile customers (86 per cent of the world population) in which China accounted for 100 crore and India will reach the 100 crore figure soon. While 122 mobile connections were available per 100 people  in the developed countries, it was 77.8 connections per 100 people in the developing countries.

(b)   17.3 per cent of the world population have fixed line telephone connections.

(c)     230 crore people were using internet and in this China accounted  for 23 per cent; 34.1 per cent of the house holds in the world have internet connections

(d)   Fixed (wireline) broadband subscribers were 60 crores and it was 8.5 per cent of the world population; 25 per cent of the population in developed countries have fixed broadband connection whereas only 4.9 per cent of the population in developing countries have fixed broadband connection

(e)   Mobile broadband subscribers were 110 crores (16 per cent of world population); 51.3 per cent of the population in the developed countries have mobile broadband connection whereas it was only 8 per cent in developing countries.

(f)     While in the high income developed countries, the fixed broadband connections deliver very high speeds (above 10 Mbit/s), the speed was only 2 Mbit/s in developing countries.

(g)    While life in the most developed countries is unimaginable without internet, two thirds of the world’s population and 3 quarters of the population in developing countries are not yet online and those that are, are not having access to high speed internet.

(h)   Mobile networks are still  delivering limited data access with lower speeds. For unlimited data access with high speed, fixed line broadband access is the only solution at present.

2. The fourth meeting of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development held at Geneva in October 2011 has set the following targets for broadband availability:

(a)    By 2015 all countries should have a National Broadband Policy for providing broadband services on demand to all people at an affordable price (By 2011, out of 144 developing countries, 127 countries have established their National Broadband Plan

(b)    By 2015, broadband connection should be made affordable in all developing countries and the entry level broadband connection cost per month should be less than 5 perr cent of the GNI (Gross National Income) per head.

(c)    By 2015, 40 per cent of the house holds in the developing countries should have internet access. (At present 20 per cent of the households are covered)

(d)   By 2015, sixty per cent of the world population should be online, 50 per cent in developing countries and 15 per cent in LDCs (Least Developed Countries). At present, 33 per cent of the world population are online.

3. IDI index measuring progress in ICTs

The progress of the various countries in ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) availability to their population is measured by the ICT Development Index (IDI). This index is presented on a scale 0 to 10, with 0 indicating nil availability and 10 indicating full availability of ICTs. This index is made based on the following factors:

a)      ICT Access—fixed telephone customers, mobile customers, international internet bandwidth use per customer, percentage of households with a computer, and percentage of households with internet access

b)      ICT Use---per centage of internet users, fixed broadband subscribers and active mobile broadband subscribers

c)       ICT skills---capacity to use ICTs—adult literacy, gross secondary school enrolment, and gross tertiary enrolment

 IDI results of 155 countries are compared for the years 2010 and 2011 and the following are some of these results:

Country	Rank 2011	IDI 2011	Rank 2010	IDFI 2010
Korea (Rep)	1	8.56	1	8.45
UK (England)	9	7.75	14	7.35
USA (America)	15	7.48	16	7.11
Brazil	60	4.72	67	4.17
Venezula	77	3.92	74	3.78
China	78	3.88	79	3.58
Vietnam	81	3.68	86	3.41
Srilanka	105	2.88	105	2.74
Cuba	106	2.77	107	2.66
Namibia	109	2.51	112	2.27
Kenya	114	2.32	114	2.07
Ghana	117	2.23	121	1.81
Bhutan	118	2.13	117	1.92
India	119	2.10	116	1.98

Thus India (119^th rank)  is far behind China (78^th rank)  and Vietnam( 81 rank) and even behind Bhutan (118^th rank) in the ICT development, in 2011. Its rank is downgraded from 116 in 2010 to 119 in 2011. It is to be noted that China was behind India in 1980s in telecom sector. Therefore the so called spectacular development in telecom sector in India is not really so spectacular and it ranked at 119^th place among 155 countries in the ICT development. In fact, the ITU report ranked India among the least developed countries in ICTs in 2011.

There is a huge difference between the developed and developing countries in terms of ICT levels. The average ICT development index of developed countries is 6.52 whereas it is 3.24 only for the developing countries.The 155countries for whom the IDI index was published by the ITU for the year 2012 are classified as below, depending on their level of ICT development:

a)      38 High IDI (ICT development index) countries have an average ICT value of 7.10

b)       39 Upper IDI countries have an average ICT value of 4.88.

c)       39 medium IDI countries have an average ICT value of 3.12.

d)      39 low IDI countries have an average ICT value of 1.57.

e)      Thus the digital divide between the least conncected countries and highly connected countries is 1.57 : 7.10

India is included in this last category of low IDI countries or the Least Connected Countries.