COMMUNICATIONS: North-South Gap in Mobile Phone Use Persists

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct 12 1999 (IPS) - The global telecommunications panorama reveals that the age-old disparity between North and South continues, despite the increasing use of mobile telephones in developing countries, says the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Yoshio Utsumi, ITU secretary general, stated that this gap tends to narrow for basic telephone communication, but is widening when it comes to access to the Internet or other newly-developed media.

The ITU’s priorities include promoting the expansion of mobile telephone systems, then Internet access, in developing countries. The Geneva-based ITU is a multilateral organisation that regulates the world’s telecommunications sector,

The gaps between rich and poor in the telecommunications arena reflect those existing in the rest of the global economy, affirmed Utsumi at last weekend’s opening forum of the Telecom 99 exposition in Geneva.

The basic architecture of future telecommunication networks will increasingly focus on digitally-based communications.

As a result of this process, traditional independent communication and information infrastructures will disappear, and will be replaced by the ever-increasing competition between multimedia services.

Utsumi indicated that such technological change will allow rapid telecommunications expansion, and added he expects “all of the world’s inhabitants, and not just the minority like now, will have advanced, accessible and reasonably priced services.”

Half of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call, stated United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan at the Telecom 99 opening forum.

“A quarter of all countries have not yet achieved even a basic level of access to telecommunications – a ‘tele-density of one,’ or one telephone for every 100 inhabitants,” the UN leader pointed out.

Annan acknowledged there are indications that the gap in telephone infrastructure is narrowing. But the information gap is troubling because every day there is more data flowing through the world communications web, widening the “digital divide between the information-rich and the information-poor.”

At the Telecom expo the ITU emphasised achievements in basic cellular communication, saying that its growth “has been spectacular.”

The latest World Telecommunication Development Report, distributed at Telecom 99, was optimistic as a result of evidence that cellular mobile phone networks are being installed at a rate that allows developing countries “to avoid decades of slow fixed- line installation.”

In 1990 there were 11 million cellular phone users in the world. Today there are 300 million, and the total is growing by 250,000 per day.

The ITU underscored that the mobile phone system allows a linking of people, not places like the fixed-line system. Cellular phone users can call people wherever they are, across cities or around the world.

An important innovation for the mobile phone market was the introduction of pre-paid phone cards, which transformed telephone services into consumer goods that can be purchased at the local supermarket.

The pre-paid cards make it easier for young consumers and people with limited resources to enter the mobile phone market because the cards allow them to limit their phone expenses.

The ITU report recognises, however, that mobile phone costs are still prohibitive for most people in developing countries. Charges for mobile phone calls are, on average, 40 cents of a dollar per minute, while fixed-line calls cost an average of 10 cents per minute.

The mobile communications sector has become one of the world’s most promising businesses. The 10 largest companies offering mobile phone services brought in 10 billion dollars in profits in 1998, tax free.

The profitability of the mobile communications industry stands at 17 percent of ventured capital, though the traditional fixed-line sector is not far behind with profits at 10 percent.

There are some clouds threatening mobile phone prosperity, however, particularly in the environmental and health arenas.

Environmentalists and urban planners criticise the use and placement of mobile phone antennae and have promoted campaigns to eradicate them, saying the towers are a blight on the landscape.

In addition, mobile phones and their infrastructure share the stigma of other electrical and electromagnetic technologies – they are suspected of being harmful to human health.

The ITU report says no one can guarantee that the electromagnetic emissions from electrical networks, television, mobile communication and other sources are not hazardous to human health.

But, the report states, there is no conclusive evidence to the contrary either.