In the developing countries, it is unlikely that Internet connections will use traditional phone lines, as there are other technological solutions. The developing countries' equipment rate for digital lines is equivalent to the rate of industrialized countries. The growth in mobile telephony is also spectacular. The solution could be brought by cellular radiotelephony and satellite connection.
However, the demarcation between the "info-rich" and the "info-poor" does not systematically follow the demarcation between the so-called developed and developing countries. Access to information technology in the so-called rich countries is also rather uneven. Some developing countries, such as Malaysia or a number of countries in Latin America, have a very dynamic telecommunication policy. In the documents prepared for the second Conference on the Development of Telecommunications in the World, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from March 23 to April 1, 1998 in Valletta, Malta, it was stated that several developing countries, such as Botswana, China, Chile, Thailand, Hungary, Ghana and Mauritius, succeeded in extending the density and the quality of their phone services during the last three years. On the other hand, the situation was getting worse for the poorest countries.
During the ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence held in January 1997, Wilfred
Kiboro, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Nation Printers and Publishers
Ltd., Kenya, stated:
"Information technology needs to be brought to affordable levels. I have a dream that perhaps in our lifetime in Africa, we will see villagers being able to access [the] Internet from their rural villages where today there is no water and no electricity. We hope they will be able to watch Sky News on their portable televisions, but maybe this is just a dream."
For the media particularly, there is an abyss between the 'info-rich' and the 'info-poor'. In many African countries, the circulation of newspapers is very low compared to the population figures, and each copy is read by at least twenty people. According to Wilfred Kiboro, who noticed in his company a drop in the newspapers' price thanks to multimedia convergence, distribution costs could drop with the use of a printing system by satellite which could do away with the need for transporting newspapers by truck throughout the country.
Nevertheless, multimedia convergence in particular and the globalization of the economy in general has put the developing countries in a position of inferiority because the printing and radio-television broadcasting means are in the hands of a few main western groups. Cultural problems exist alongside economic problems. Paradoxically, information relating to Africa and broadcast for Africans doesn't come from the African continent, but is broadcast by westerners who transmit their own vision of Africa, without any real perception of its economic and social situation.
Some developing countries - such as Mauritania - rely on the Web to regain prestige, as explained by Emmanuel Genty and Jean-Pierre Turquoi in the daily French newspaper Le Monde of March 30, 1998. Mauritania presented its Government Official Site at the headquarters of the World Bank during the Days of the Consultative Group for Mauritania (Journées du Groupe consultatif pour la Mauritanie) on March 25-27, 1998. This event took place following the media focus on the continued existence of slavery in this country, despite the fact that it has been officially abolished for years. The website is intended to be the country's shop window for tourists and foreign investors. On the other hand, the use of the Internet inside the country is heavily regulated by the Post and Telecommunication Office (Office des postes et des télécommunications - OPT), which is the national operator. And things are made even more difficult because of prohibitive connection costs - three times the cost of a local phone call.
China is also discovering digital information through the China Wide Web, which is the country's national Internet. The number of its subscribers jumped from 100,000 in 1996 to 600,000 in 1997. Set up by the China Internet Corporation (CIC), a company based in Hong Kong, the China Wide Web is a business and information network more or less cut off from the rest of the world, and screened and controlled by the Chinese authorities.
The abyss between the "info-rich" and the "info-poor" is not only the one dividing developed and developing countries. In any country, there are gaps between the rich and the poor, the employed and the unemployed, the people who belong to society and the people who are rejected by it. As a new communication medium, the Internet can be a way out of the abyss. Anyone can have an e-mail address on the Net. Anyone can use the Web in the public library or in the premises of some association, to find information or look for a job.
2.3. The Web: First English, Then Multilingual