INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION

Telecom Interactive 97
Geneva, 8-14 September 1997

Opening Remarks
Telecom Development Symposium

Telecom Interactive 97

Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union

Thursday, 11 September 1997

Mr. Chairman, 
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It is a great pleasure and honour for me to open this Symposium devoted to tackling some of the key issues posed by the development challenge.  

Some of you might be asking yourselves whether we, at ITU, are a bit too optimistic in looking at interactive technologies as a means of bringing rapid development to all economies of the world.  Several of you are probably wondering in what ways the Internet is important for developing nations if most of them have not achieved yet a reasonable penetration of basic telephony.  Given their limited and outdated infrastructure, should developing countries concentrate on deploying basic telephony rather than looking at advanced services such as Internet? 

Let me try to elaborate on why we, at ITU, think that Internet and other interactive technologies offer a unique and valuable opportunity for developing countries.  An opportunity that will certainly not solve all the communication problems they face, but, that will certainly help reduce the degree of information and communication scarcity that most of them suffer.

There are several reasons why Internet and other interactive technologies should not be overlooked by the developing nations.

The lack of an adequate infrastructure has been a huge burden to the developing world.  Yet, at the turn of a new century this infrastructural poverty can turn into an advantage—at least regarding the possibility of technological leapfrogging.

In recent years developing nations have made considerable progress in the expansion of their communication infrastructure.  During the first half of the 1990s, for example, teledensity (that is the number of main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants) in low income countries grew by an annual average of 25 per cent, while the world average for that period stood at only 4.2 per cent.

Most of this frenetic network expansion is based on digital technologies, and should therefore provide emerging economies with the basic conditions for the development of computer-based interactive communication.  

The current level of digitization achieved in emerging economies challenges common wisdom.  By 1995, 90 per cent of all main telephone lines in low income economies were digital, turning them into the nations with the highest level of main line digitization in the world.  During that year only 78 per cent of main lines in high income economies were digital, while in upper middle income economies main line digitization stood at 65 per cent.

So, given that the basic technological conditions are in place to pursue access to the vast information and communication services and resources that comes embedded in new computer-based interactive technology, why should developing nations settle for “voice-only communication”?

Of course, several of you would challenge this proposition by arguing that if computers are involved in the communication process, then developing nations fall of outside of this emerging communication paradigm.  If interactive communication services are thought of on an individual household basis, then I would certainly agree that most of the population in the developing world would be excluded from this new world of communications.  

After all, in the mid-1990s there were less than 2 personal computers per 1,000 inhabitants in low income economies, while high income countries enjoyed more than more than 200 computers per 1,000 inhabitants.  But, here again I would argue that there are new ways of tackling this challenge.

One of the problems that we have faced until recently is that a considerable number of developing nations have followed an industrialized notion of universal service.  That is, one telephone in every home.  In Africa, for example, only 1 per cent of all installed main telephone lines are open to public access—in the form of public call offices or telephone booths.  

This universal service policy, with all its good intentions, has choked access to communication services for most of the population.  

In recent years, however, the high economic and social value attributed to information and communication access has lead to new thinking on access policies.  Reforms in this area have brought considerable liberalization of the telephone service retail market.  

In a growing number of developing nations small private entrepreneurs are allowed today to operate as outlet points providing not only basic telephony but also a range of new communication services. The reform has considerably boosted the accessibility to communication services in the countries that have embraced the strategy.  

Furthermore, a number of countries are experimenting with the idea of Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs).  These provide premises equipped with the latest information and communication technology and services—such as stand-alone and networked computers, printers, faxes, telephones, photocopiers, and a number of new services, such as connections to Internet and other public networks and databases—that are opened to the local community on a commercial basis not only for use, but also for training and education.  The approach has a number of positive aspects:

•	It provides a wide variety of information and communication services to a population that otherwise would not have access to these facilities.
	
•	It offers much more than basic telephone services, granting the opportunity to train and educate a large number of people in the use of new information and communication technologies, while providing at the same time a practical use of the infrastructure.
	
•	Due to the commercial nature of the venture and the intensive usage of equipment and networks, there is a fast return on investments.

In today’s world a population with skills in the use of information and communication technologies is key to economic development.  MCTs offer a fast and effective way to provide access to info-communication infrastructure and services to a large number of the local population.

Finally, it is worth keeping in mind that, given its pricing structure, multimedia features, and global reach, computer-based interactive technologies, such as Internet, offer new and interesting opportunities for both consumers and the national economy at large.

Innovative pricing and settlement mechanisms such as flat rates and sender-keeps all schemes has sharply reduced prices of communication services lifting one of the main communication barrier for consumers in developing nations—that is the high price of communication services.  Furthermore, the technological features and global reach of the Internet is increasingly turning it into the new marketplace for international commerce—an electronic arena where global economic transactions are thriving at a fast pace.  The low cost and global reach of Internet offers developing nations affordable means to connect to this global electronic marketplace and avoid economic marginalization.

For all these and other related reasons I firmly believe that advanced interactive technologies are not fancy products to be embraced only by developed economies.  On the contrary, they hold great potential for developing countries and, adequately adopted, they can constitute powerful tools to boost and sustain economic development.

This Symposium is an effort of the ITU to contribute to the process of identifying the most adequate policies geared towards this end.

Mr. Chairman, 
Ladies and Gentlemen, 

let me wish you a very productive and successful meeting.