U.S. Funds Nationwide Broadband Access in Poor Countries, So Why Not at Home?

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For the past several years, I have been working on broadband-wireless projects in the developing world funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In Macedonia, we turned Internet connectivity for a schools project into a nationwide deployment of wireless services covering 95 percent of the country. While many goals were associated with this activity, first and foremost was its link to the country's economic development. The schools were the anchor tenant for the deployment, but eventually everyone from students, home consumers and business benefited from having access to a low-cost service. Like the quote from the movie — “if you build it, they will come” — we did just that, and they did. Internet use has gone from 4 percent to over 32 percent in three short years.

Back here in the United States, I can see more clearly how the developing world understands the relationship between providing broadband Internet services and economic development and growth. Although the US government invests in the provisioning of broadband wireless service in developing countries, it does not appear to understand the benefits of providing Internet access to its own rural constituents. Astonishingly, rural areas of the United States actually have lower Internet penetration rates than countries like Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia.

In Macedonia, most people migrate from their small villages and move to the capital city of Skopje to find employment. Yet the extension of Internet services outside the capital now means that people can start a business outside Skopje and communicate with new clients around the world, as has been the case for apparel companies and lamb farmers. While these efforts may seem tiny by US standards, they represent a major step forward in a developing economy.

And there are more examples:

• In Uganda, no one ever imagined there would be demand for any type of Internet services outside of the capital city of Kampala, but a USAID-funded wireless buildout has quickly resulted in widespread interest in Internet access there.
  
• In Romania, the World Bank is funding a buildout of Internet access points connected by wireless including the use of WiMAX solutions throughout the entire country.
• The Republic of Georgia is also embarking on the provisioning of broadband-wireless services for more than 2,700 schools and 90 educational resource centers.

Of course, there are still many developing countries where the incumbent telecommunication provider controls fixed and mobile telephony as well as the ISP marketplace. In Montenegro, an annual fee of 120,000 euros was required to receive a license to import and export data packets to the Internet. The incumbent received favorable dispensation from the government of Montenegro, not realizing how the sizable fee would stymie the growth and use of the Internet in Montenegro. The fee is now reduced to 1,000 euros, and the market is open.

In countries like Senegal, the Gambia and Gabon, regulations governing the telecommunications sector have not changed, which favors the incumbent and creates a lack of competition in the marketplace resulting in a low home use rate because of high pricing.

At the same time, it has been odd watching the market protectionism evident in Africa and Eastern Europe also apparent here, if only slightly more subtly. What I would love to see are the big players not only providing urban broadband services but also working together with local, state, and federal governments to provide these services to the most remote locations around the country.

Because the United States is already "developed," we tend to forget that there are actually economically disadvantaged pockets within most cities and most rural areas that would benefit tremendously from broadband Internet access. If the developing world understands that Internet access makes a difference in economic growth in these areas, why can't we?

Watch a W2i interview with Glenn Strachan, former project director for Macedonia Connects.