INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION		

Tunis, 18 March 1995
Africa and the Information Superhighway
Seminar on “L’autoroute de la communication”
Organised by l’Association Tunisienne de Communication (ATUCOM)
Dr. Pekka Tarjanne
Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Mr. Chairmen,
Distinguished fellow speakers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have been involved in communications for more than twenty years, and I must say that it is a very long time since I have seen so much interest in communications, everywhere in the world.  We probably have to go back to the 1960s when satellites were first launched and Marshall McLuhan said that we were living in a “global village” to see so much interest in communications.  Why is this so?
One explanation is obvious.  All forms of communications are changing very rapidly, thanks to the information technology revolution.  Broadcasters, journalists, entertainers and artists are all beginning to realize that they are part of an emerging complex of “information industries”.  They now belong to the same extended family as computer scientists, software developers and telecommunications engineers.  The media are clearly fascinated by what is happening around them and want to tell the world about it.  But there is more to the story than media self-absorption.
If there is one individual who has almost single-handedly raised the profile of communications in the public mind, it is surely the Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Al Gore.  His image of “electronic highways” that will lead mankind to a better world in the twenty-first century has struck a responsive chord, not only with the media but with heads of state, industry leaders, and at least some members of the general public.  Perhaps Mr. Gore will one day be remembered as the McLuhan of the ‘90s!
Today, his vision is widely shared.  The European Union and Japan have developed ambitious plans to keep pace with those announced by the American administration.  In fact, dozens of national initiatives have been announced around the world.  But again, there is more to the story.
Vice-President Gore was not content to raise the profile of communications at the national level alone.  At the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference in Buenos Aires in March, 1994, he proposed that the nations of the world should cooperate in building what he called a “Global Information Infrastructure”, or GII, founded on the same principles as the American “National Information Infrastructure”, or NII.
Once again, the Vice-President’s concept captured the imagination of the world and triggered a response in other capitals. As you probably know, a few weeks ago there was a special meeting of the G.7 group of advanced industrial nations again to discuss the GII.  The GII Commission, a private sector initiative supported by many of the biggest communications companies in the world, also held its inaugural meeting in Brussels on the eve of the G7 meeting.  The GII was also the subject of intense discussion at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos in Febrary.
Is the GII the future of communications?  More particularly, what does it represent for the peoples of Africa? These questions seem to be uppermost in everyone’s mind. Today, I would like to give you my views on this question.  In my mind the answer is yes -- and no.
First of all, what is the GII?  How does it differ from traditional forms of communications?
There are many different answers to this question.  It is no exaggeration to say that every country has a slightly different view of what the GII is, what it will do, and how it should be built.  Europe has put the emphasis on economic and social issues, such as employment, in “the global information society”.  Japan, on the other hand, has stressed the theme of “reforms toward the intellectually creative society of the twenty-first century”.  Singapore sees itself as an “intelligent island”.  Every country, in fact almost every speaker, has a different point of view.
Should we therefore conclude that the GII is nothing more than a catchy slogan? Personally, I would hesitate to draw such a negative conclusion.  It seems to me that  whether we talk about information highways, the NII, the EII, or the GII, we are talking about a common set of goals, about a common set of ideals, about a common set of problems.  Whether we know it or not, we are, in fact, talking about the future of communications, a future that will be very different from the past, a future that almost certainly awaits us in the twenty-first century.
How will the communication networks of the future differ from those of the past?  To begin with, I think there is widespread agreement on the technical aspects of this question.  If you will allow me, I will try to capture this consensus in a few sentences. The networks of the future will be digital.  They will be intelligent.  They will be defined and controlled by software.  They will offer high transmission capacity and flexible bandwidth.  They will have open architectures so that they can be easily accessed and interconnected.
Second, there is also consensus on how the communication services provided by these networks will differ from traditional services.  They will convey information from every possible source -- by putting us in touch with other human beings, by tapping the world’s rapidly expanding reservoirs of electronically stored information, by sensing what is happening in natural and man-made environments.  This information will be presented to us in all its richness; the networks of the future will connect with our senses of sight, sound and touch, and perhaps with our other senses as well. The services provided by the networks of the future will be personal, tailored to the needs of individual users.  They will allow us to interact with other information sources -- whether they are people, databanks or environmental sensors -- in ways not previously possible.  And they will be mobile, available any time and in any place.
Third, there is also a widely shared vision of how these networks and services will be applied. In addition to providing an almost unimaginable range of business and entertainment services in response to market demands, it is widely assumed that education, health care and other public services will be provided by communication networks.  If all of these visions materialize, it is certainly the case that every aspect of life will be transformed. 
This, in a few words, summarizes the consensus that I see emerging around the world on the communication networks and services of the future.  It is an inspiring vision.  The question is how we can realize it.
When I attended the Information Technology Governor’s meeting at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos a few weeks ago, I was asked if the world was “on track” towards the GII.  My answer surprised the audience.  It was “no”.  Let me explain why.
I come from Finland and, like many Finns, enjoy the outdoors.  In fact, when an interviewer from a Geneva newspaper asked me recently where my favourite place in the world is -- probably expecting me to say Geneva`-- I truthfully replied that my favourite places are the lakes and forests of Finland.  
In Finland, we have at least two very popular sports that people enjoy in the wild.  One is hiking.  The other is called orienteering.  The difference between them is that when you hike, you follow a track towards your destination.  When you go orienteering, you have a goal but there is no track.  It is up to you to find the best way, using a compass and map.  If you try this sport you will quickly learn that the shortest route on paper is not always the quickest way through the forest.
For me, finding the best route to the goals we have set for the communication networks of the future is more like orienteering than hiking.  We know where we want to go.  But we do not know yet how to get there.
It is sometimes thought that there is a magic solution to building the GII -- for example that the answer is the Internet, or that it is Broadband ISDN, or that it is interactive cable television, or that it is future generation wireless technologies.  Personally, I do not believe that there is a magic solution of this kind -- that some “revolutionary technology” or “killer application” will conquer the world.  It is much more likely that the GII will be a “network of networks” and that it will evolve out of existing technologies and services, just as communications has always done.
It is also sometimes suggested that the mergers and alliances now taking place in the communications industry will lead to a situation in which a handful of giant, vertically integrated companies dominate the world.  I do not see this as likely to happen either.  It may be true that a small number of super-carriers will dominate international business services.  In this area, there are real benefits for customers from end-to-end service delivery.  However,  in general it seems to me that increasing competition,  increasing diversity,  increasing innovation, and increasing creativity will typify the networks of the future.
Beyond predicting what will happen, I will even go so far as to say what should happen.  When it comes to content services, whether one-way or two-way, the last thing any of us should want is to see power concentrated in a few hands -- whether they are the hands of government or the hands of the private sector.  We should use communications and information technology to bolster the values that underlie democratic societies.  In the global information society of the twenty-first century, there should be no room anywhere for “Big Brother” or any of his relatives.
In this respect, I see the interactivity promised by the communication networks of the future as one of their most important attributes.  A truly democratic society depends on informed and active citizens.  I believe there is a clear connection between what happens in private realms, such as the home and office, and what happens in public fora where political choices are made.  If we are passive “couch potatoes”  in our leisure time, will we be active members of society?  I believe that all of us involved in communications need to reflect seriously on this fundamental question.
There is another moral and political comment I would like to make about the concept of the Global Information Infrastructure.  As I have said today, I think there is an emerging consensus on what the words “information infrastructure” mean, as well as on the kinds of services that will be provided by the networks of the future.  However, it seems to me that we have a much less clear idea of what the word “global” means.  Will the GII be global in the sense of carrying all kinds of information?  Or will it be global in the sense of being accessible from at least some locations in most or all countries?  Or will it be global in the sense of providing universal service to people everywhere, from the remotest villages to the most crowded urban cores? 
There appears to be a tendency to assume that the GII will be global in all these senses, and that it will provide access to the world’s information resources to the poorest countries and people in the world as well as to the richest.  This is a laudable vision.  But is it realistic under present conditions?
In 1984 the report of the ITU’s Maitland Commission revealed an enormous gap between developed and developing countries in terms of access to basic telephone service.  Our 1994 World Telecommunications Development Report showed that this gap had barely narrowed, in spite of the great progress made in some parts of the world.  In our 1995 report, which will be published in the fall to coincide with TELECOM 95, we are going to look at the worldwide development of information infrastructures.  Not surprisingly, in this area the gap between the information rich and the information poor is several orders of magnitude wider than in the area of basic service.
Advanced communications networks are important to Africa for the same reasons they are to other regions of the world: to be plugged into the global information society, to attract foreign investment and to provide innovative ways of delivering health, education and government services. Africa has even more of a reason than other regions to be concerned about international connectivity. After Europe, it generates the second highest international traffic per telephone line and its PTOs are far more reliant on international traffic revenues than other regions. The limited availability of communication facilities in Africa may also be of advantage, since, in the process of catching up with the rest of the world, the continent has an opportunity to install state-of-the-art information infrastructures.
The number of main telephone lines per 100 people (teledensity) in Africa stood at 1.6 at the end 1993. This is just  15 per cent of the world average and just 3 per cent of the average for developed economies. Though Africa lags other developing regions such as Asia and Latin America in telephone line growth, the African growth rate in main lines is above the world average and about twice that of developed countries.  In the penetration of television sets, Africa is much closer to the rest of the world. Indeed, in the area of pay-TV -- a possible forerunner for some of the services to be provided over the information superhighway -- Africa is already well-advanced. The world leader in pay-TV -- Canal+ -- already offers services in many francophone nations. Also, the third  largest pay-TV company outside North America --M-Net -- is based in South Africa. By March 1994, it had 842’000 subscribers in South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Ghana and Nigeria.
The success of pay-TV in Africa shows that there is a market for advanced communication services in Africa. Providing the quality is sufficiently high, consumers are willing to pay relatively high prices. The development of a unified network providing both telephony and pay television service could save money by avoiding duplicate infrastructure, generate higher revenues so that more funds would be available for expanding the network and provide a rationale for building broadband infrastructure that could also be used for text, data and image transmission. For example, one study finds hybrid TV/telephony networks are no more expensive than conventional telephone networks and can generate up to five times more profit than plain telephone networks. 
Figure 1: Main lines and television per 100 persons, 1993 and monthly charges for telephone and pay TV, 1993

Source:	ITU/BDT Telecom Indicator database, Canal+.

The development of a truly global information infrastructure will be an enormous challenge for mankind.  Of course, it is a major technical challenge; but it is much more than that.  Seen from the perspective of today’s realties, the development of the communication networks of the future cannot -- and should not -- be separated from overall human development.  For me, the development of the GII is part of the world-wide development of mankind’s diverse economic, social, cultural and political structures and capabilities.  To succeed, this development must take place in harmony with the possibilities and limits present in the natural and human environment.
If I may return to my orienteering metaphor, I think that all of us have a goal -- to participate in developing communication systems for the future.  We have a map -- the different network and service paths that can be taken to reach this goal.  We face many unknowns along whichever route we take -- the unpredictable elements of technology, markets and human behaviour.  Let me suggest that we also have a compass -- a moral compass -- that should point us toward paths that maximize values such as universal access, the right to communicate and diversity of expression.  These values are fundamental not only to communications, but to the  democratic evolution of mankind.  There will never be a truly global information infrastructure unless people everywhere can have access to it, can draw on its resources, and can use it to express themselves.  To me, these values are the future of communications.