World Bank Seeks to Expand Internet Accessibility Across the Globe

New technologies and business models have been termed as key in helping developing countries expand high-speed internet access according to World Bank’s latest report on Innovative Business Models for Expanding Fiber-Optic Networks and Closing the Access Gaps.

The report aims at closing the global digital divide and ensuring that everyone can be able to reap the social and economic benefits of digital development including the poor or isolated communities where traditional strategies may not be economically viable.

The increasing importance of the Internet, not only for tasks related to information search, storage, and sharing but also for connecting people and business, domestic and international trade, education, entertainment, and social interactions has led governments around the world to include Internet connectivity in their priority policy agendas and infrastructure plans.

In the past ten years, the world has witnessed a massive increase in the need to deploy and upgrade telecommunications infrastructure to meet the explosive demand for broadband Internet access.

This high demand arises from the powerful virtuous circle of the proliferation of increasingly data-consumptive devices and applications in everyday life, increasing the relevance of content, the readiness of the consumer market and falling service, device, and application prices.

Today, access to the Internet is no longer a luxury but is increasingly considered an essential service, as important as building transportation and utility networks. However, more than four billion people, overwhelmingly in developing countries, still lack Internet access.

Once considered a luxury, broadband internet now serves as the backbone of the global digital economy, which will soon account for a quarter of the world’s GDP.

Connecting the four billion people with internet could be costly and technically challenging, as many of them live in low-income, rural, or secluded areas. Soaring demand for faster, more reliable internet will also require extensive upgrades to existing infrastructure.

Most of the broadband telecommunications investment in the past decade was focused on larger cities with relatively high-density households and businesses. The effect of this investment was to widen the digital divide between cities and nonurban regions, especially in rural areas, which are becoming relatively more isolated. This regional, profit-driven pattern occurred on a global scale, with increasing divergence between more-developed and less-developed nations.

The report found that most successful broadband initiatives have been driven by the private sector. Public agencies play a crucial role by implementing effective sector regulation, addressing potential market failures, and creating the conditions for an open, competitive broadband sector.

Increased competition for broadband services, including where appropriate the infrastructure itself, has led to significant improvements in the coverage and affordability of high-speed internet.

Recent innovations are also creating new ways to scale up access. These include, among others, broadband deployment using low-cost satellites, small cell solutions, as well as drones, balloons, and other nonpermanent structures.

As markets and technologies evolve, countries should consider opportunities to repurpose existing infrastructure. Certain television frequencies, for instance, have progressively fallen into disuse due to advances in broadcasting and could be leveraged to expand wireless network coverage.

Infrastructure sharing, where multiple broadband providers to operate the same network to keep costs down, is another promising option. In many cases, they may work with companies in sectors such as energy or transport to pool key assets and combine civil works contracts.