"Mobile technologies underpin digital transformation in the Pacific Islands as authorities take steps to help economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and manage threats from climate change and natural disasters. Mobile is the first (in most cases only) form of internet connectivity for many con
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sumers and businesses across the region. In the past few years, mobile subscriber penetration and smartphone adoption have increased but remain considerably lower than the global average. Improving access to connectivity and closing the mobile internet usage gap are essential for socioeconomic development and to ensure that no one is left behind.
Digital connectivity – with 5G at the core – is set to shape the way people live and businesses operate, accelerating socioeconomic advancement across areas such as healthcare, education, digital commerce, transport and tourism. 5G is still in its early stages in the Pacific Islands; only Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands had launched commercial 5G services as of March 2023. However, operators have already taken steps to prepare for the 5G era, including making their networks 5G-ready. By 2030, the number of 5G connections in the Pacific Islands will reach 1.5 million, equivalent to 17% of total mobile connections. In the meantime, there is an opportunity to migrate more customers from legacy (2G and 3G) networks to 4G, growing adoption beyond 50% in the coming years." (Executive summary)
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"Making Open Development Inclusive: Lessons from IDRC Research focuses on the connection between openness and inclusion in global development. It brings together the latest research that cuts across a wide variety of political, economic, and social arenas - from governance to education to entreprene
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urship and more. The chapters draw on empirical evidence from a wide and diverse range of applications of openness, uncovering the many critical and underlying elements that shape and structure how particular openness initiatives and/or activities play out - and critically - who gets to participate, and who benefits [or not] from openness, while exploring the frontiers where openness intersects with deeper challenges of development, technology, and innovation." (Publisher description)
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"This study uses econometric modelling to examine two major components of great importance to all those concerned with investment decisions in ICT and the digital ecosystem over the coming decade. The modelling is built on data from 139 countries between 2007 and 2018 – an up-to-date data set that
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is robust, high-quality and global in scope. The first component examined is how broadband and digitization impact the economy. The second is how institutional and regulatory maturity impact the growth of the digital ecosystem.
Our evidence points to four major findings that are of great import in informing governments, policy-makers, regulators and operators as they formulate general infrastructure and ICT investment decisions in the years ahead. The findings are:
1. Developing countries should implement policies to maximize mobile broadband1 adoption, as the main digital technology contributing to economic development and addressing the digital divide.
2. Developed countries should adopt policies which favour fixed broadband penetration as a key contributor to their economic growth.
3. Beyond broadband, all countries should aim to increase the development of digitization, which encompasses not only infrastructure deployment but its usage to foster the digital transformation of industries and improve consumer wellbeing.
4. Regulatory and institutional maturity in the ICT arena do indeed make a significant difference – and are important in driving the growth of digitization.
The study confirms that the economic impact of fixed broadband is guided by a return to scale effect: economic impact grows with penetration. The economic benefit of mobile broadband depicts a saturation effect: its economic contribution declines with penetration." (Executive summary)
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"The internet has revolutionised the way that many of us live our lives, enabling new forms of communication, fostering online communities, fuelling economic growth, and facilitating all manner of entertainment. Yet about half of the world’s population remains offline, and only about 19% of the Le
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ast Developed Countries’ (LDCs) population has access to the internet. The reality of access in rural areas across the world is even more bleak, with access in rural areas sitting at about 14% compared to 42% in urban areas in Global South countries. It is more urgent than ever to focus on affordable and meaningful mobile broadband internet access to deliver on the promise and opportunities of digital development in developing countries of the Global South, with special attention to rural areas and LDCs in general. In order to achieve the universal goals for reducing inequality and achieving universal access by 2030, it is crucial to have clear frameworks that can guide and speed up progress. This Rural Broadband Policy Framework (RBPF) aims to provide guidance to address the persistent ‘Digital Divide’, with a focus on the context and challenges faced in rural areas." (Introduction)
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"Nearly 250 million people live in Indonesia. More than 80 percent of them have no access to the Internet. Access to broadband has the potential to transform individual lives, local communities, and entire nations. The last decade has seen exponential growth in Internet connectivity. Information and
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communication technologies, especially high-speed broadband Internet connections, have the potential to catalyze development in ways the world has never before seen. Getting broadband to urban centers and rural villages spread across tens of thousands of islands proved challenging because of multiple challenges including technology, funding, and existing policies. This spurred a partnership between the Government of Indonesia and USAID’s Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) Alliance implementing partners NetHope and Integra Government Systems International LLC (Integra). The partnership addressed national policies that affected broadband rollout, tested ways to increase access in rural communities, and supported applications that could improve lives once reliable and affordable Internet connectivity was established." (Page 3)
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"In 2012, some of the most expensive internet access service in the world was the only way humanitarian organizations could serve the world’s largest refugee community, Dadaab in Kenya. Even though it was founded twenty years earlier, internet access in Dadaab was still inadequate -- slow, ineffic
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ient, difficult to maintain and expensive, with high-maintenance satellite dishes that cost between $500 and $1,000 per month for one megabit of data. However, within four years, Dadaab now has robust wireless network coverage and redundant terrestrial internet service, at a fraction of the cost. What happened? Aid programs in Dadaab started to work together. They gathered data, determined their common long-term needs, shared their expertise and started to purchase internet connectivity together. This guide shows you how to bring those same tools and strategies to benefit programs in your country." (Page 4)
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"[This publication] re-emphasizes the important contribution that broadband Internet can make and assesses the status of existing infrastructure in at least 18 MENA countries. While there is significant potential across the region, the take-up of broadband Internet has been slow and the price of bro
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adband service is high in many countries. In large part, this stems from market structures that, too often, reflect the past when telecommunications were treated as a monopoly utility service. The report finds that there are gaps in infrastructure regionally with no connectivity between neighboring countries in some cases. Similarly, there are gaps within countries exacerbating the (digital) divide between rural and urban areas. Broadband Networks in the Middle East and North Africa examines the regulatory and market bottlenecks that are hampering the growth of the Internet." (Back cover)
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"The Broadband Strategies Handbook is a guide for policymakers, regulators, and other relevant stakeholders as they address issues related to broadband development. It aims to help readers, particularly those in developing countries, by identifying issues and challenges in broadband development, ana
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lyzing potential solutions to consider, and providing practical examples from countries that have addressed broadband-related matters. The Handbook looks at how broadband is defined, why it is important, and how its development can be encouraged. Throughout the volume, broadband is viewed as an ecosystem consisting of both supply and demand components, both of which are equally important if the expansion of broadband networks and services is to be successful. In addressing the challenges and opportunities that broadband gives rise to, the Handbook discusses the policies and strategies that government officials and others should consider when developing broadband plans, including the legal and regulatory issues, what technologies are used to provide broadband, how to facilitate universal broadband access, and how to generate demand for broadband services and applications." (Abstract)
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"Cet ouvrage a pour ambition de poser les bases d'une réflexion globale sur les enjeux actuels de l'informatisation de la RDC : quels bénéfices et avantages la RDC tirera-t-elle d'une informatisation de toute la société ? A l'inverse, quels sont les effets pervers et autres manques qui résulte
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nt de la pauvreté numérique ? Comment l'Etat peut-il s'engager dans cette logique de numérisation de façon stratégique et prospective ?" (Description de la maison d'édition)
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"Broadband for Africa focuses on one part of the broadband policy jigsaw puzzle—backbone networks. These are the high-capacity communications networks that form the heart of the internet. This book addresses three specific questions: What role do backbone networks play in the provision of broadban
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d services? What is the current state of backbone network development in Africa and the reasons for this? What can be done to promote the development of backbone networks? This volume places backbone networks in the overall context of broadband policy in Africa. It outlines their importance and provides a policy framework for accelerating their development." (Back cover)
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"In the developing world, mobile phones have revolutionised telecommunication and have reached an estimated average 49.5 per cent penetration rate at the end of 2008 – from close to zero only ten years ago. This is not only faster than any other technology in the past, but the mobile phone is also
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the single most widespread ICT today, states the first section of this report. Then, it introduces the new ICT Development Index (IDI), aimed at capturing the level of advancement of ICTs in more than 150 countries worldwide. The Index also measures the global digital divide and examines how it has developed during the five-year period from 2002 to 2007. The results suggest that globally the digital divide is as prevalent as before, but is slightly closing between countries with very high and low ICT levels. In combining prices for fixed and mobile telephony, and broadband internet access, a new ICT Price Basket provides for the first time a measurement tool for assessing ICT affordability globally. It compares prices among countries for using the three technologies in US$ values, in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) values, and as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI). The results reveal that while fixed telephone tariffs are relatively cheap in most countries, tariffs for broadband internet access are often prohibitive and thus a major impediment for less developed countries." (CAMECO Update 1-2010)
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"This report highlights the latest ICT developments in the region and includes key statistical information for every country. It features a regional analysis of the ITU ICT Development Index (IDI) and the ICT Price Basket, two ICT benchmarking tools that were launched in March 2009. The report point
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s to key policy issues in the region and provides concrete recommendations for policy makers." (Foreword)
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"Based on the above preliminary research on the current status of the digital divide, latest and emerging technologies, and ICT for development initiatives in Asia and the Pacific, this report concludes that the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS still face numerous difficulties in terms of implementation of ICT
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initiatives, introducing ICT access and assessing the ICT access need of people in the region. This report then recommends holistic and comprehensive ICT implementation approaches among the developing countries of Asia and the Pacific, namely 1) reinforcing regional cooperation initiatives, 2) adopting appropriate technologies and maximizing the benefits of existing infrastructure and initiatives, and 3) raising public awareness." (Conclusion, page 26)
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"This report makes an inventory of existing transmission backbones in Sub-Saharan Africa, and discusses issues related to solutions for improved utilization of such networks. Mobile GSM operators in Sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly covering most populated areas with telephone services. To reach new ar
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eas, the operators keep expanding their transmission links, and the result is the emergence of new telecommunication backbone networks. The mobile operators now own and control the bulk of transmission backbone capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Regulation and competition between operators have largely prevented shared use of these emerging backbones. A number of issues are raised in the report: The lack of open access, the dominating position of the GSM operators, the pricing of transmission services and regulation. It is Sida’s intention to raise these issues among African operators, regulators, policy makers, donors and financing organisations." (Back cover)
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