IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 20

ew transportation, production,
and telecommunications technologies have had enormous impacts
on the economic, political, and
social aspects of nations and their
people. Different disciplines argue
whether the overall consequences
of these advances have been positive or negative for
humanity [1]. For instance, the industrial revolution has
revolutionized the quality of life and economic development of most people in the world; however most agree
that this phenomena is a main cause of global warming, which might have a huge impact on future generations. Digital technologies are not exempt from the
complex mix of positive and negative repercussions.
While the impacts of digital technologies are gradually
extending into health, education, governance, and human rights [2], these technologies are being adopted
at alarmingly different rates and levels around the
world and within countries themselves, thus impacting
the levels of development and empowerment of individuals, groups of people, and nations [3], [4]. In some
cases, technologies that are labeled as "democratic"
and should be tools to reach and impact all citizens,
are technologies that are amplifying already existing
problems and that unevenly empower segments of the
population, thus altering the political, social, health,
and economic ecosystems in favor of select few.

Status of Data Connectivity in the World
The basic condition for the existence of the Internet
is the availability of a wired or wireless communication infrastructure, also called the "physical layer."
While advances such as the Internet of Things (IoT), HD
streaming, and other technologies are at their height in
some societies, great portions of the world will not have
access to even slow Internet for decades to come. Even
more years will have to pass until these populations
enjoy current technologies that we in parts of the Western world currently take for granted.
Indeed, overall, only 25% of the populations of
developing nations utilize the Internet. Fixed broadband penetration remains low in some regions such as
Africa and the Arab States, at 0.2% and 2% respectively
[6]. According to the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU), by late 2011, Africa's Internet penetration
rate was only 15.6%. It is expected that by 2020, this
figure will rise to 25%. While current macro indicators
in South America and the Middle East seem more optimistic (48.2% and 40.4%), they all must be taken with
caution as they hide the harsher reality of rural areas
and very poor nations, some of which have majority
rural populations. These figures also hide the reality
of very low speeds and low quality of service given to

urban populations, which are inadequate for tasks that
most of the Western world have performed for decades.
These realities have led to the utilization of appropriate
mechanisms for "Internet" provision. For instance, the
Internet in rural Africa is entirely different to the Internet used in the developed world. In parts of Africa, hundreds of millions of people will experience the Internet
for the first time on a 2-inch cell phone screen, in black
and white, and probably only as text [7].
Other challenges abound, including inappropriate
national government policies. In India, for instance,
appropriate regulation has led to prepaid mobile telephony costs of 0.01 USD per minute, one of the cheapest in the world. Peru's cost per minute in remote areas,
on the other hand, is twenty times higher. These diverging realities let the citizenry and institutions face different sustainability challenges, particularly where most
rural areas experience low population density, and
where inhabitants live on under a dollar a day and face
other challenges such as illnesses, malnutrition, and
high child and maternal mortality rates.
In spite of ambitious national development plans
and ambitious goals set by international organizations
such as the ITU, the prospects for remote areas to
enjoy moderate connectivity is still decades away [9].
Governments and international organizations are trying
to understand and improve the prospects. However a
lack of appropriate national policies and a lack of international concerted and coordinated efforts mean that
the limited and isolated interventions have only limited
impact. Good-willed international short-lived interventions have also generally failed due to the paternalistic
nature of projects, the lack of long-term sustainability
plans, the short-life nature of projects, and a lack of
understanding of local contexts such as culture, language, politics, policy, and religious beliefs [8].
In the mainstream communications sphere, commercial telecommunications companies' business models generally favor areas of high citizen density that
produce adequate revenue for services. State-sponsored
initiatives also prefer areas of higher density in order to
impact a wider segment of the population and to justify
spending. Similarly, emerging initiatives that profit from
customer data and e-commerce also favor more densely
populated areas with higher economic means, for the
same reasons. Sparsely populated remote areas are not
attractive for the application of these business models
and are thus left untouched or to the mercy of wellmeaning organizations for years to come.

Data Connectivity and Health
Technology has a vital role in betting the health of individuals. The role of technology as a tool has been so
pivotal that it is now at times impossible to perform a

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

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MARCH 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015