In the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit (job-related.although I wish it were personal) and I’ve seen firsthand the global digital divide. There is no question it exists. I’ve been places where you can access the Internet from literally anywhere at lightning-fast speeds and I’ve been to places where the Internet may as well have never been invented. Not surprisingly, the latter of these conditions manifests most consistently in less-industrialized nations.

There are certainly factors at play beyond the level of industrialization in a country, however. In some cases, the government in power does not want its citizens to have access to the information on, or the public platform available via, the Internet. In other instances, the citizenry doesn’t have the financial means or the education to use the technology required to access the web even if it is available. In still other situations, the problem is as simple as a lack of appropriate telecommunications infrastructure.

This is where I’d like to focus my attention.

To close the global digital divide, even a little, a framework for service needs to be in place in those nations where it doesn’t currently exist. Without this framework, education regarding Internet use and whether or not those in power want the people to have access is irrelevant.

So, how do we get the right telecommunications infrastructure in place in areas/nations that can’t afford to do it themselves (assuming they have the desire)?

The answer, at least to me, seems to lie in private enterprise. In the United States, in particular, we have several giant corporations with the technical and logistical ability to help “wire” those nations without any or, at the very least, functioning Internet service.

That said, they are private organizations built on the premise that they exist to make money. Large (in this case huge) philanthropic undertakings do not generally pad the bottom line. Therefore, there needs to be incentives in place that will encourage Internet service providers to lend a hand in areas where their help is desperately needed – both with equipment and infrastructure.

Tax breaks seem to be the obvious offering in the short-term. For each project completed in an area on the wrong side of the divide, Company X will get a write off of X amount of dollars. There has to be something in it for the provider for this to be viable.
There is an additional, albeit less altruistic, motivator. Enabling service enables more people online. This means more money comes into the provider and the businesses that depend on Internet service. Think of it as a start-up investment with slow returns.but, as we have seen in our country, once you’re online, you’re “addicted.” The return on investment will come.

So, private enterprise can work to help close the global digital divide or the chasm can continue to grow.

For now, these service providers control access, but what if, in the not-too-distant future, there comes along an innovator who develops a way to give free access to all without a physical infrastructure? I don’t have the technical knowledge to even contemplate how that could work, but it would be a truly cataclysmic occurrence for those who are financially dependent on providing what some people think should be a right as a service.

Until that day comes, I think that one solution to closing the global digital divide is represented by the telecommunications companies of the world banding together to help provide the infrastructure necessary to do so. They, I have no doubt, will be rewarded in some way – even if it isn’t financially.