Amon Sa­ba Saakana

In to­day's tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven so­ci­ety, in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) in­fra­struc­ture is foun­da­tion­al to eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and so­ci­etal well-be­ing. Yet, what is of­ten miss­ing from the de­bate over ICT-based de­vel­op­ment is a case for why pub­lic pol­i­cy should fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing na­tion­al ICT in­fra­struc­ture.

De­vel­op­ment of In­ter­net-based eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty-whether do­mes­tic con­tent, ap­pli­ca­tions or ser­vices-must be pred­i­cat­ed on lo­cal avail­abil­i­ty of crit­i­cal In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture. Re­stat­ed, the ab­sence of lo­cal In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture com­pro­mis­es a coun­try's abil­i­ty to build a ro­bust and se­cure do­mes­tic In­ter­net ecosys­tem and econ­o­my.

Greater good ef­fect

The Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor should be clear on the fact that de­vel­op­ment of high-speed broad­band con­nec­tiv­i­ty is cen­tral to fu­ture eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment. Elec­tric­i­ty changed how so­ci­eties are or­dered and the tele­phone brought a par­a­digm shift in pat­terns of be­hav­iour and lifestyles.

In the same way broad­band ac­cess can en­gen­der not just in­no­v­a­tive busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties, but bal­anced na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing to­tal­ly new mod­els of sus­tain­able growth.

Re­cent In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) stud­ies con­clud­ed that the in­tro­duc­tion of broad­band and In­ter­net telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion is crit­i­cal to ad­vanc­ing de­vel­op­ment and so­cial in­clu­sion. They al­so con­firmed the long-held the­o­ry that greater ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to broad­band will lead to low­er costs and greater us­age.

Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, all across the world, broad­band net­work ex­pan­sion is seen a stim­u­la­tor of eco­nom­ic growth and ma­jor fa­cil­i­ta­tor in ad­dress­ing is­sues of chron­ic pover­ty and un­even de­vel­op­ment.

The na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment ben­e­fits of broad­band are too im­por­tant to leave the pri­vate sec­tor alone to set the im­ple­men­ta­tion agen­da. The so­cial re­turns from in­vest­ing in more crit­i­cal ICT in­fra­struc­ture, such as broad­band net­works and In­ter­net Ex­change Points (IX­Ps), ex­ceed the pri­vate re­turns of com­pa­nies and con­sumers. There­fore, proac­tive na­tion­al In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture and broad­band de­vel­op­ment strate­gies are nec­es­sary to max­imise over­all so­ci­etal wel­fare.

Pub­lic pol­i­cy con­sid­er­a­tions

There is a de­vel­op­ment im­per­a­tive to in­vest in co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts to im­prove na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty and in­crease the pro­duc­tion of lo­cal con­tent. This must in­clude ini­tia­tives to ac­cel­er­ate the build-out of more do­mes­tic and re­gion­al con­nec­tion points to cut the dis­tances for da­ta traf­fic and low­er costs to con­sumers.

Uni­ver­sal broad­band ser­vice can bridge the dig­i­tal di­vide be­tween those who have ac­cess to the In­ter­net, es­pe­cial­ly broad­band ac­cess, and those who do not. It can im­prove na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive­ness and pro­vides new op­por­tu­ni­ties to new groups.

Of course, the pro­vi­sion of high band­width will not in it­self, dri­ve the evo­lu­tion to a knowl­edge econ­o­my.

The best-per­form­ing broad­band mar­kets are those where com­pet­ing in­fra­struc­tures and the com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment pro­vide a spur to in­vest­ment by ser­vice providers. There­fore, the fo­cus of pub­lic pol­i­cy should be on fa­cil­i­tat­ing pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment by low­er­ing the cost of build­ing out in­fra­struc­ture, and us­ing reg­u­la­to­ry pol­i­cy to im­prove fi­nan­cial re­turns.

Eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions

In de­vel­op­ing the knowl­edge econ­o­my, it is es­sen­tial to en­sure that the prin­ci­ples of in­clu­sive­ness, plu­ral­ism, eq­ui­ty, open­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion are tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion. These prin­ci­ples must be equal­ly ap­plic­a­ble to all mem­bers of so­ci­ety.

The goal should be for all to have equal op­por­tu­ni­ties to be­come par­tic­i­pants and con­trib­u­tors, ben­e­fit­ing from new eco­nom­ic, ed­u­ca­tion­al, health, em­ploy­ment and so­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties. This is why uni­ver­sal ac­cess to broad­band must be a top pri­or­i­ty.

Reg­u­lat­ing for ac­cel­er­at­ed de­vel­op­ment

All of these mar­ket, tech­no­log­i­cal and so­cial de­vel­op­ments, ex­ert pres­sure on cur­rent reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. It presents reg­u­la­tors with an un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to ful­fill their core so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment man­date by ac­cel­er­at­ing the adop­tion of broad­band.

Ad­dress­ing this chal­lenge re­quires reg­u­la­tors to move be­yond old par­a­digms, re­vise out­dat­ed reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works and em­brace new, de­vel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed reg­u­la­tion.

Reg­u­la­tors can di­rect re­source to mak­ing lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions aware of the tech­nolo­gies and broad­band pro­vi­sion­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able. To dri­ve de­mand for broad­band-en­abled ser­vices, they can al­so co­or­di­nate with oth­er gov­ern­ment and pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions, such as uni­ver­si­ties, schools, li­braries, po­lice sta­tions, util­i­ties, and health cen­tres.

Par­tic­u­lar pri­or­i­ty has to be giv­en to roll-out of mo­bile broad­band ser­vices. Suf­fi­cient spec­trum must be made avail­able for ser­vice providers to sup­port this.

Pub­lic pol­i­cy can al­so catal­yse this through tax in­cen­tives and the cre­ative use of uni­ver­sal ser­vice funds to stim­u­late in­vest­ment in broad­band im­ple­men­ta­tion. This presents tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties for new pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships.

None of these things takes place in a so­cial vac­u­um. Con­tin­u­ous ex­pan­sion of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­works based on broad­band In­ter­net and oth­er ICT ad­vances will stim­u­late new forms of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion of un­prece­dent­ed scale and flex­i­bil­i­ty, span­ning cities, na­tions and cul­tures.

For this rea­son, the pub­lic pol­i­cy de­bate has to change quick­ly. There has to be a broad na­tion­al di­a­logue and a clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed strate­gic ap­proach to do­mes­tic In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture and na­tion­al broad­band ac­cess now. If we do not act, our coun­try and re­gion will lag fur­ther be­hind oth­er emerg­ing economies in terms of at­tract­ing in­ward in­vest­ment and re­main­ing eco­nom­i­cal­ly com­pet­i­tive.

Broad­band ben­e­fits

What is broad­band?

Broad­band can be viewed as the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to de­liv­er da­ta and fos­ter in­no­va­tion. This per­spec­tive goes be­yond a spe­cif­ic elec­tron­ic da­ta trans­fer speed, or a spe­cif­ic tech­nol­o­gy.Broad­band is best con­sid­ered as a ca­pa­bil­i­ty that is "fit for pur­pose," not just in the im­me­di­ate con­text, but al­so in a dy­nam­ic con­text that al­lows ca­pa­bil­i­ties to ex­pand in line with de­vel­op­ment goals, user en­vi­ron­men­tal re­quire­ments.

The ben­e­fits

Eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment: It pro­motes eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment by cre­at­ing new jobs, at­tract­ing new in­dus­tries and pro­vid­ing ac­cess to re­gion­al, na­tion­al, and world­wide mar­kets. Study: Dou­bling broad­band speed for an econ­o­my in­creas­es gross do­mes­tic prod­uct by 0.3 per cent. For every ten per cent in­crease in broad­band pen­e­tra­tion, GDP in­creas­es by 1.0 per cent.

So­cial in­clu­sion: Presents an un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to fos­ter a more par­tic­i­pa­to­ry, co­he­sive so­ci­ety. Ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly dis­persed com­mu­ni­ties and so­cial groups can have greater in­ter­ac­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion and health: New op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­tance learn­ing, elec­tron­ic cur­ricu­lum de­liv­ery and dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation. It al­so fa­cil­i­tates pro­vi­sion of med­ical care to un­served and un­der­served pop­u­la­tions through re­mote di­ag­no­sis, treat­ment, mon­i­tor­ing, and con­sul­ta­tions with spe­cial­ists.

Pub­lic ser­vices: Fa­cil­i­tates more ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of pub­lic ser­vices (e-gov­ern­ment). It stream­lines cit­i­zen ac­cess to gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and pro­vides in­for­ma­tion about poli­cies, pro­ce­dures and pro­grammes. It al­so al­lows for de­ploy­ment of more so­phis­ti­cat­ed e-gov­ern­ment ap­pli­ca­tions.

Pub­lic safe­ty: En­ables na­tion­al de­ploy­ment of and ac­cess to ser­vices, such as ear­ly warn­ing/pub­lic alert sys­tems and dis­as­ter prepa­ra­tion pro­grammes; re­mote se­cu­ri­ty mon­i­tor­ing and re­al time se­cu­ri­ty back­ground checks

Re­search and de­vel­op­ment: Fa­cil­i­tates more col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­els of en­gage­ment across a range of re­search dis­ci­plines and top­ics;

Cloud com­put­ing : Prac­ti­cal­ly en­ables ac­cess to in­ter­net-host­ed ap­pli­ca­tions and ser­vices. This in­cludes de­ploy­ment of band­width-hun­gry ap­pli­ca­tions such as Voice over IP, video con­fer­enc­ing, gam­ing, mu­sic and video, back­up sys­tems.

Bevil Wood­ing is an In­ter­net strate­gist with the US-based re­search firm, Pack­et Clear­ing House and the chief knowl­edge of­fi­cer at Con­gress WBN, an in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Fol­low on Twit­ter:

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