Infrastructure
Ethiopia
Report Year
Themes
Toward better measures of global ICT adoption and use
Introduction
Efforts to agree on the most appropriate indicators to use for measuring disparities in information and communications technology (ICT) adoption and progress toward information society goals have continued in 2008. However as yet global consensus has not been reached and debate continues over what indicators would best take into account the growing broadband divide, what constitutes “universal access”, and how to accommodate local realities regarding data availability, especially in developing countries.
Institutional overview
Report Year
This overview chapter is concerned with ways in which global institutions have addressed access to infrastructure since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), particularly during the last year (2007-2008). The policies and practice of global institutions usually change gradually rather than dramatically. The chapter therefore seeks to put their role in context. Its first section reviews key issues in recent debate about access to infrastructure. The second section considers recent developments in institutional policy and future access challenges.
Accessing content
Organization
Networks and Development Foundation (FUNREDES)
Introduction
Themes
Spectrum management
Organization
Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA)
The “brick” – weighing down innovation in Ethiopia
Themes
Trends in technology
Organization
Balancing Act
Bandwidth, the petrol of the new global economy
Put simply, bandwidth is what carries voice and data from one place to another. Bandwidth is the petrol of the new global economy; and cheap international bandwidth is an essential component for any developing country to remain competitive in a changing world.
Themes
Open standards
Organization
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Most computer users today remain “digitally colonised” (Bhattacharya, 2008) due to our unquestioning use of proprietary standards. As users of proprietary standards we usually forget that we lose the right to access our own files the moment the licence for the associated software expires. For example, if I were to store data, information or knowledge in .doc, .xls or .ppt format, my ability to read my own files expires the moment the licence for my copy of Microsoft Office expires.
Themes
Net neutrality
Organization
Intelligent Networx
The end of the internet as we know it?
Themes
Introduction: Access to infrastructure
2008 was a year in which there was much focus on the issue of universal access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the internet.