"This report advances the Meaningful Connectivity framework as a way to support more inclusive societies and strengthen digital economies. It measures the gap in the number of people with just basic internet access and those with meaningful connectivity and examines what this digital divide means fo...r people’s online experiences. The framework focuses on four pillars: 4G-like speeds, smartphone ownership, daily use, and unlimited access at a regular location, like home, work, or a place of study. This report looks at nine low and middle income countries (Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa), using mobile phone surveys to estimate the number of people with meaningful connectivity in each. We found that, on average, only one in ten people in these countries have meaningful connectivity. This compares with just under half who have basic internet access, by latest official figures." (Executive summary, p.3)
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"This report analyses how governments are building climate and carbon factors into their broadband policies, looks at the consequences of inaction, and suggests policy recommendations towards a greener internet. We compiled publicly available documents for the national broadband plans from the 100 l...ow- and middle-income countries where A4AI has measured internet affordability for the past three years. From these countries, we conducted a keyword search for their mentions of the environment, climate, energy, electricity, and sustainability. From these results, we contextually analysed each mention and compared keyword mentions and density across plans and conducted additional textual analysis. We found that environmental themes are infrequently mentioned and exist mostly within the margins of broadband policy, if at all. An environmental keyword appeared once every 6-7 pages, on average. Genuine targets and policy reforms were even less frequent. These issues are described as limiting factors (reasons why social and economic situations are not better today) or as future possibilities (positive assumptions about what could happen from greater internet access and ICT use). Frequently, these same words - the regulatory environment, sustainable business models, and the investment climates - were used beyond their original meaning to frame policy debates around systems thinking, and did not relate to climate factors at all. Energy was one of the most common environmental themes across national broadband plans. The countries that had most environmental references in their policies, such as Nepal and Peru, tied their ambitions for greater access to the internet with greater access to electricity. This matches with countries' development paths where internet access and electrification are concurrent efforts." (Executive summary, p.3)
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"The meaningful connectivity standard is a tool to raise the bar for internet access and set more ambitious policy goals for digital development. It sets minimum thresholds across the four dimensions of internet access that matter most to users. These are: regular internet use - minimum threshold: d...aily use; an appropriate device - minimum threshold: access to a smartphone; enough data - minimum threshold: an unlimited broadband connection at home or a place of work or study; a fast connection - minimum threshold: 4G mobile connectivity." (Introduction)
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"This report details the urban-rural connectivity gap in nine low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and what that means for their potential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals ... Across all nine countries [Colombia, India, Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Afri...ca], roughly only one in ten people have meaningful connectivity. In urban areas, this increases to one in seven. In rural areas, the ratio drops to one of every twenty. This disparity becomes even worse in the two LDC countries in our study: in Mozambique and Rwanda, fewer than one in every fifty people in rural areas have meaningful connectivity. This should alarm policymakers because as a share of the world’s rural population, one in four lives within an LDC country: as part of the world’s online population, only one of every twenty users connects from an LDC country." (Executive summary, p.3)
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