Chapter Four : Results And Discussion

As each day passes, our society grows and develops because of technology. We continue to become more connected to the rest of the world because of this technology. This, however, does not change the staggering situational differences of the world. There is still uneven distribution of natural resources and unequal opportunity for people. There are many people in Asia and Africa

But what has leads to this big unbalance? Our team think that it’s the work of the digital divide, which is a phenomenon that occurs from the mid-20th century. The birth of the internet has allowed other technology to escalate at an impressive rate. As such, the more internet usage a country has, the more developed it is. For example, Africa has internet usage rate of 0% except for certain small area, while rich regions like America and Australia

In fact, the situation in those countries is relatively complicated and not easy to assess. Several aspects contribute to the destructive conditions in the sub-Saharan region. Basically, poor education systems, insufficient infrastructure and inadequate healthcare services are at the top of the list. Each of these aspects will be separately analyzed in the following paragraphs.

First, I think that these nations should adopt more liberal policies. Specifically, they should practice freedom of speech and freedom of the press. While I do not believe in enforcing Western concepts on non-Western regions in a neo-imperialist type of way, I do believe that certain democratic ideals ensure political stability. In order for these countries to work out many of their issues and raise their spots on the human development index, then they need to have peace and order within their borders. Also, in my opinion, the free exchange of ideas promotes ingenuity, which will be important as the world moves towards a conceptual economy. I also believe that Mauritius’ investments in communication media technology helped grow its economy and allowed it to become an active member at the U.N., especially in committees concerning the environment and small island country development. Right now, the only medium for many on continental Africa is the mobile phone. By diversifying internet accessing devices, not only will these countries be more modern, but more people will be online. With more citizens online, a country is opening its doors to many financial opportunities. As U.S. President Barack Obama said, “broadband access is now a necessity, not a luxury”. If these African nations want to see their economies grow, they cannot solely depend on mobile technology for their broadband access. They need more

| * Politically stable, high telecom demand, 8-year tax exemption, telecom licenses in issuance * 80% phone lines and 71% payphone users concentrated in Dar es Salaam

From looking at figure 5 a varity of trends can be shown. When focusing on internet users a very slow rate of growth can be shown, this may be due to the small amount of countries that are able to get access to the World Wide Web due to connections. Over a 10 year period from 1998 to 2008 there can be seen a major rise in the use of the internet. As the internet is a relatively new device it is clear that those less developed countries would take time to get hold of it. 1990 was quite early for a developing country to use the internet but is is clear as the world has become more globalized and developed the internet usage has shot up. This is due to a technological advance around the world and slowly the developing countries got hold of

Firstly recorded in the report of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) survey in 1995, (Servon, 2002), the term Digital Divide presents an interesting quandary of information and communication technologies (ICT) disparities among countries in the world, especially between developed and developing countries. Many reports even showed that access to ICT in these information “have” and “have-nots” countries was unequally even (Bridges.org, 2001; Fuchs & Horak, 2008; Norris, 2001 ; Van Dijk, 2009). Nonetheless, though inequities in access to ICT are most evident across countries, the same pattern is found within the countries themselves. In the U.S, for example, the gap in ICT access does exist

Has the digital divide (between both women and men and between developed and developing countries) widened in the decade 2004-2014?

List of the countries of the WHO African Region was acquired from the regional WHO website (Appendix 1). Various databases were searched to obtain the most recent country-specific data on all the variables. Links to data on all indicators is available in Appendix 2.

The rise of mobile technology in Africa has become one of the most revolutionary steps in the recent technological growth. Many people are now using smartphones and other handheld devices. Major communication companies like Safaricom and Telkom Kenya are providing a stable connection to the internet.

ICTs, Africa and you: How do you see the development of the sector in the last 5 years?

The economic impacts attempt to find out the effects of ICTs on the economy through technological and non-technological innovations in a country. It also considers the number of patent applications that impact on the development of ICTs based new products, processes and organizational models. It also estimates that overall the economy is shifting towards more knowledge intensive rampage. In modern age, mobile phones can impact economic development in many ways that brings a huge chance to reduce the costs of communication by reducing cost of information searching. Mobile phone is one of the important components in developing countries where needs of the people differs from people to people (Unwin, 2009). Waverman, Meschi and Fuss (2005) note that “mobile phones substitute for fixed lines in poor countries,” and that “mobile telephony has a positive and significant impact on economic growth.” Bedia (1999) also suggested that use of dependable information technology reduces the information transmitting cost among the people for that reason information technology supply curve is shifting to the right.

— German market has always been a trend-setter when it about telecoms. Since the first commercial introduction in the 1980s, optical fiber innovation has experienced a practically significant growth and since more than 30 years, the increased research, technology development and commercialization of optical fiber combined with their continuously growing technical applications have been become a success story of optical fiber in Germany. In addition, Independent research has proven that investments in future-proof infrastructure have a significant positive influence on the growth of the economy of Germany. During most recent 10 years, Germany has put over €80 billion in telecommunications infrastructure, yet to the extent ultra-fast broadband accessibility is concerned, the nation is still a sleeping giant. However, Interests in future-proof infrastructure won 't just help Germany to become out of the present crisis, the slipstream will likewise help other EU nations whose economies are mostly reliant on the German economy.

Convergence technology is breaking down walls of the media and allows news to become international that means local news can spread to global audiences. In fact, the Internet has created an extraordinary of information and entertainment via data broadcasting, Internet technologies and traditional home video replacement. People around the world can access the content that media owners provide, so the same contents are spreading to global viewers. In addition, research in industry trends from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that advertising revenue on the Internet is predicted that it will sharply rise from 6,000 billion in 2008 to 15,000 billion in 2017,

Tunisia occupies the first rank in Africa and 38th out of a total of 134 countries in integrating ICTs in development. The first use was aimed to updating the telecommunication infrastructure across the country and to creating a digital economy which supports the private sector and encourages corporate competitiveness, also to developing human resources by the restructuring of education and research institutions and strengthening international cooperation and partnerships in the field of ICTs .