DIGITAL DIVIDE AND E-GOVERNMENT

WORLDWIDE AND IN SWITZERLAND

STUDENT NAME: Philipp Hofer

STUDENT NUMBER: 05 212 568

COURSE NAME: Electronic Government - Course HS-2010

DEPARTMENT: Information Systems Research Group

UNIVERSITY: University Freiburg, Switzerland

SUPERVISOR: Luis Terán

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30 Nov. 2010

I

ABSTRACT

This work is situated in information and communication technologies in the area of digital divide. What

does digital divide describe? “The digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to

digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all” [Wiki 2010]. This gap can

be understood as gap between different countries, a gap in the world, or as a gap within a country itself.

The gap is influenced by many factors like education quality and level, average richness, technical interests

of the people, technical situation, gender, age, geographical situation, political basis, and many more.

In the literature discussions are ongoing which factors are more important and how one could take

measures against these factors. The connection and possible measures within a political system to avoid

such a gap are discussed and set into practice for example in the European program eEurope 2010. The

educational factors especially the illetrismus and analphabetisms are of important weight.

Langer criticizes the incomplete theoretical background about information and knowledge acquiring. It

seems not to be clear what a good learning process should look like in connection with the new information

and communication technologies possibilities.

The main part of this work concentrates on the specific situation in Switzerland. Thereby the social

structure, the education system, and general political structure, factors influencing the digital divide

conditions indirectly and directly are discussed.

At the end possible aspects of the digital divide influencing the development of E-Government are

discussed.

Keywords:

Digital Divide, E-Governement, Gap’s, Rich + Poor, Age, Gender, Internet connection, Knowledge acquiring, Information and Communication Technology, Learning and ICT

II

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................................I

KEYWORDS: ........................................................................................................................................................................ I

FIGURE AND TABLE DIRECTORY ......................................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCITON .................................................................................................................................................................. 2

PROBLEM STATEMENT, RESEARCH QUESTION ........................................................................................................................... 3

MOTIVATION ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3

OUTLINE ............................................................................................................................................................................ 3

GLOSSARY, IMPORTANT WORD EXPLANATION ................................................................................................................ 4

Emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) ................................................................................... 4

E-Government ............................................................................................................................................................ 4

E-Democracy .............................................................................................................................................................. 4

Digital Divide .............................................................................................................................................................. 4

E-Government and Digital Divide ............................................................................................................................... 5

DIGITAL DIVIDE WORLDWIDE AN OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................... 7

WORLD ............................................................................................................................................................................. 8

GAPS BETWEEN COUNTRIES ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Africa .......................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Western World ........................................................................................................................................................... 8

China .......................................................................................................................................................................... 9

DIGITAL GAPS, INFLUENCING ASPECTS .................................................................................................................................... 10

Below the salt, access .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Missing skill, education, literacy and foreign language ........................................................................................... 11

Apathy, no need ....................................................................................................................................................... 11

DIGITAL DIVIDE IN SWITZERLAND? ................................................................................................................................. 12

INTERNET USAGE........................................................................................................................................................... 12

Age ........................................................................................................................................................................... 13

Gender: Men and Woman and internet usage ......................................................................................................... 14

Education level......................................................................................................................................................... 15

Income ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15

E-Commerce ............................................................................................................................................................ 16

E-Government: Internet use with public institutions ............................................................................................... 16

EXPENDITURE ON INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ...................................................................... 17

HOUSEHOLDS WITH PERSONAL COMPUTERS ................................................................................................................. 17

MEASURES AGAINST DIGITAL DIVIDE .............................................................................................................................. 19

III

POLITICAL BASIS ................................................................................................................................................................ 20

MEASURES AGAINST THE ACCESS PROBLEMS ........................................................................................................................... 20

IMPROVING EDUCATION, INTEGRATING ICT ............................................................................................................................ 21

MEASURES AGAINST APATHY, NO NEED OPINIONS .................................................................................................................... 21

CONCLUISON .................................................................................................................................................................... 22

DIGITAL DIVIDE IN SWITZERLAND ................................................................................................................................ 22

CONSEQUENCES FOR E-GOVERNMENT AND DIGITAL DIVIDE ...................................................................................................... 22

REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................................................................... 24

LITERATURE: ..................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Books: ....................................................................................................................................................................... 24

WWW: ...................................................................................................................................................................... 24

Sorted by topics: ....................................................................................................................................................... 26

ANNEX .............................................................................................................................................................................. 27

STATEMENT .................................................................................................................................................................. 38

1

FIGURE AND TABLE DIRECTORY

List of Figure page reference Figure I Fixed broadband Internet subscribers 2008 (per 100 people) 7

Figure II Internet users 2008 (per 100 people) 7

Figure III Digital gaps 10

Figure IV Measures against the digital divide 20

[Ency-N 2010]

[Ency-N 2010]

-

[BBT 2004]

[DEZA 2003]

[Langer 2007]

[Kraner 2004]

List of Table page referenceTable I Internet user in percent timeline ........................................... 13

Table II Reasons for not having an Internet connection ................... 13

Table III Age and having an internet connection ............................... 14

Table IV Using Internet, age and gender ........................................... 14

Table V Education level and internet use the last month ................. 15

Table VI Income, using internet, having an internet connection ...... 15

Table VII E-Commerce: expenditure of households via the Internet

each year 2002-2008 ......................................................................... 16

Table VIII E-Government Interaction Levels ...................................... 17

Table IX Expenditure on information and communication

technologies in international comparison, 2006 ............................... 17

Table X Households with at least one Personal Computer 2009 ...... 18

Table XI .............................................................................................. 30

Table XII ............................................................................................. 33

Table XIII ............................................................................................ 34

Table XIV ............................................................................................ 35

Table XV ............................................................................................. 35

Table XVI ............................................................................................ 35

Table XVII ........................................................................................... 36

Table XVIII .......................................................................................... 37

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BBT 2004]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2010]

[BFS 2010]

[Ency-N 2010]

[Ency-N 2010]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

[BFS 2006]

2

INTRODUCITON

This work is part of the Electronic Government - Course HS-2010. Its field is the so called knowledge society

with concentration on E-Government. The meaning of important expression is shortly explained in the next

subsection in this introduction or more detailed in [Meier 2009]. In that field the paper study focus on one

of the problems which may occur, when a country is intended to develop a modern ICT system the digital

divide.

The problem within a country itself and also the uprising different chances between far ICT developed

countries and less-developed countries are meant when talking about digital divide. So the expression

digital divide describes according to [Wiki 2010] is not only a gap in countries but in general between the

people living in them: “The digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital

and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all”. Therefore this gap can be

understood as gap between different countries, a gap in the world, or also as a gap within a country itself.

Many different factors are influencing this gap like education quality and level, average richness, technical

interests of the people, technical situation around them, gender, age, geographical situation, political basis,

and a lot more. In the literature discussions are ongoing which factors are more important and how one

could take measures against the occurring problems.

In example [DEZA 2003] states the connection and possible measures within a political system to avoid such

a gap.

“Digitale Spaltung in der Schweiz” [BBT 2004] concentrates on the educational factors, especially the

illetrismus and analphabetisms.

By reading about digital divide one gets aware about the importance of this topic, especially when one has

the fast and still ongoing process of modern information and communication technologies (from now on

ICT.) in mind. The idea of this work is to give a short overview how the digital divide is subclassified in the

different parts of the world. To do so the worldwide situation in digital divide is shortly described in a first

part with the help of scientific sources of different parts in the world. This is done with some aspects for

Africa by the thesis [Alex 2008], for China with the paper [Li, L. 2008], and for different parts of Europe by a

book published by the OECD [OECD 2000] in section “Digital Divide Worldwide an Overview”.

The main part of this work will focus on the specific situation in Switzerland. The general political structure,

social structure and the education system, the major factors which are influencing the digital divide

directly. In this second part the specific situation in Switzerland is analyzed an important basis for this are

the sources of the Swiss government institutions [DEZA 2003] [BBT 2004].

3

Problem statement, Research Question

Which factors are building the digital gap? Describe the topic itself?

How should one handle the digital divide as a problem itself or more as a side problem of education?

What is important to avoid a bigger digital gap or to do something against it, which structures are needed

in general and only in the case of digital divide?

Hypothesis: The problem digital divide is mainly a problem of the society structure, the political and

worldwide situation. The main problems don’t exist only in an E-Government and ICT point of view but the

unusual fast developing of information and communication technologies is reinforcing the already existing

problems and showing them more obvious.

Motivation

The world was and is always changing and developing one of these big ongoing changes is the rapid

evolving of the internet, computers the so called Information and Communication Technologies ICT field. In

actual literature one often talks about a new age, the ICT age, Knowledge and Information age or Network

age. In far developed countries there are many new interaction and communication methods for people

giving new chances but also new challenging problems: For an individual itself, i.e. getting lost in a virtual

Game world like WOW, or just being not part of the new technologies loosing value on the job market, as a

nation, community or person.

This Section is followed by explanation of some important terms in this area.

Outline

This work is a classical paper research approach and is therefore based on reading, analyzing and

summarizing the content of existing literature. The way ICT. is a fast changing area the focus was set more

on up-to-date webpages and recent scientific papers then on books, which are hardly updatable.

4

Glossary, Important word explanation

Emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

The aspects of digital divide are all relatively new, based on the emerging of the New Economy build upon

the so called ICT. This new way of communication and new possibilities provided by computers had a big

impact on ways in which economies and people are working. And it also changed their private

communication and interaction ways. As mentioned in [Kraner 2004] and [Langer 2007] this development

was and still is very fast. The risk of being lost, and be unable to participate is therefore relatively big.

E-Government

E-Government describes the process to develop a more electronically government such that the way of

interaction between the different participants is more comfortable, cheap, transparent and adapted to

modern ways of communication in ICT. One is making the distinction between the following interaction

participant’s government and citizens (G2C – government to citizens), government and business enterprises

(G2B –government to business enterprises) and relationship between governments (G2G – inter-agency

relationship). (For more details see [Wiki-EG 2010] or [Meier 2009] p.8.)

The most important tool for such interactions is beside of computers the connections between them a so

called network or especially the internet for far interaction distances.

E-Democracy

E-Democracy is a subpart of E-Government and stands for the direct democratic and indirect democratic

parts of communication and interaction. This can be an electronically vote platform, politically web

platforms and so on.

Digital Divide

For a first explanation please read the introduction part of this section.

Discussions are ongoing what exactly this expression should express in a scientifically way, “an incoming

gap refers to an unequal income, an employment gap refers to unequal employment, what does the digital

gap refer to? Unequal digits?” [Langer 2007]. In general the fact is clear that disparities between the

information and knowledge inhabitants are leading to unequal chances also in the ICT, the so called digital

divide.

A big problem seems to be apparently if one thinks deeper about the coherence and use of ICT, knowledge

and procedural learning is the question how important is ICT really for learning and knowing. The digital

divide is often discussed in the view of a computer scientist, having a strongly mathematical background,

not including enough the social dimension and aspects. Why should everyone use the internet, not

everyone has the same interest, abilities, willingness and needs. Aren’t there often better alternatives? ICT

5

can very quick lead to excessive demand trend, many bugs, many errors many incomprehensible problems

occur, when using ICT products, on all progression state of the user!

As mentioned by [Langer 2007] in chapter 6 the idea that knowledge is just generated by the use or

presence of information so that use and availability can just be transformed in more and good knowing may

be logical in a mathematical view, but is far away from the (social) reality. The theoretical background on

how the internet or other ICT components are influencing knowledge acquiring and subserving the people

in comparison to other information sources is not really analyzed scientifically in depth. So the conclusion

that just the presence of more available Information (in ICT in a digital sense) leads to something better and

more constructive may be wrong. At least there seems not to be a theoretical and scientific stable theory

for making such a statement. Anyhow this is the basic idea of many scientific papers in this area.

It’s very difficult to measure the influence in the view of knowledge acquiring. In other areas this is a little

easier, in example the impact in dating agency is very big, in Germany according to [Spiegel 2010] one third

of all contact from middle aged people leading to a partnership is made with help of ICT, the internet.

But it seems obvious that this means for the government that only providing the ICT infrastructure can’t be

enough, new learning methods and guided use of ICT is needed. See also the section “Digital gaps,

influencing aspects” for details about skill problems. It should also be clear that there exists a digital divide,

but the emphasis in science literature about how important this gap is or will influence the new and

evolving area especially E-Government is very difficult to say. Detailed interviews trying to give an answer

to this question can be found in [Kraner 2004].

E-Government and Digital Divide

To what point do the digital divide and E-Government belong together, where to they overlap? As the

literature shows the main point is that the gap in ICT, the digital divide is based mainly on educational and

socio cultural problems. In a modern developed country the main source for education is provided by the

government itself, disposing a fundamental and higher school basis. Education has also to include the ICT

part, the basis in interaction with digital technologies especially the internet and interaction with traditional

computers. This should be obvious the way for example in Sweden two third of all workers had to do with

ICT during their work already in 1995. Another example is the fact that during a helping program for

unemployed people the most frequently chosen courses were about Computer Science (the way older

people didn’t have basically ICT education in their school). See for more details [OECD 2000] Chapter 8 and

Chapter 9 for the situation in different OECD countries.

Future points are lifelong learning, adult education, including minorities and many more.

The task of the government is not only to provide a good education in ICT but also provide equal (internet)

access within their own infrastructure as also within the living places of different ethnic groups and

geographical locations. Such an example is illustrated in [Li, L. 2008] for the situation in China.

6

On a good basis provided by these two main missions the government can easier provide E-Government

services in a classical sense. The situation in some countries is described below, in the sections “Digital

gaps, influencing aspects”, the aspects leading to a divide, is described in more detail. Thereby the focus

was set on the internet as most important part.

7

DIGITAL DIVIDE WORLDWIDE AN OVERVIEW

Figure I Fixed broadband Internet subscribers 2008 (per 100 people)

Figure II Internet users 2008 (per 100 people)

8

World

As one can see in the two world maps above the ICT (here Internet) is not spread homogeneous around the

world. In “Figure I Fixed broadband Internet subscribers 2008 (per 100 people)” for each country the

percentage of people that have a broadband Internet is indicated. Red colored if many people (in

comparison to the world average) have access light yellow indicates that no one has access.

“Figure II Internet users 2008 (per 100 people)” shows how many people are using the internet in a

country. This value in the year 2008 is going from 90% in Iceland to 0.92% in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is

one of the poorest countries in the world and belongs to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries see [HIPC

2010]. Switzerland has a value of 75.93% which stands for rank 10. Many other comparison maps

concerning ICT and detailed data for other years can be found on the webpage of Encyclopedia of the

Nations [Ency-N 2010] the raw data of the two figures above can be found in the Annex.

Rather than giving a detailed overview about many countries short examples shall illustrated some

situations. The reader can easily find more concrete descriptions about the situation in other countries in

the references at the end of this paper.

Gaps between Countries

Africa

The situation in Africa concerning the ICT technologies is, as one would expect when looking at the Human

Development Index [HDI 2010], not far developed at all. Only 2% of investments for sea cables are made for

the African Continent [faz.net 2010]. Africa is holding 2.5% of all the internet connections not much in

comparison to the 14% of worldwide population. The differences by each country of Africa are very big.

In general one can say that in many African countries the internet reaches less than 5 % of the inhabitants,

nearly all the countries don’t have more than 10% inhabitants using the internet. More details about these

situations can be found in [Alex 2008].

The main worry is the problem of the country’s infrastructure itself. When there is not enough money to

feed everyone and provide a basic infrastructure, there is no money left for ICT, there is just no

infrastructure. This situation is a so called below the salt or missing link situation (see chapter 5 in [OECD

2000]), even if one (as a person) really wanted to have access it is often not possible.

Western World

Germany, Sweden, America, UK, Japan, Switzerland, …

In contrary to Africa these countries do have very seldom a missing link problem. Most of the people in

these countries can have internet access and ICT when they want to. See section “Internet usage” for more

details about having internet access in Switzerland. Anyways there are big differences and several aspects,

which exist for people even in such a far developed ICT Society. These factors will be discussed more in

9

detail in the next main section. A problem is that an internet connection in these countries can be

expensive or inexistent due to geographical circumstances. Another big aspect is that many people,

especially women are uninterested in the ICT domain and therefore hardly underrepresented. This

casualness and lack of interest is called the wasteland. The situation got less dramatic in the last few years

in the entertainment and home use but still remains a big challenge in the educational and high school

sector.

Future problems are foreign languages, not typically in Switzerland but in many other monolingual

countries not understood by minorities and foreign peoples. As we see later the education and so the

educational support of the government plays an important role in these countries, if one uses the ICT and

especially how.

Sweden is mentioned in chapter 8 [OECD 2000] as a good example of providing an advanced and supportive

ICT learning and education surrounding. An important aspect is that each student is free to choose two

thirds of his studies according to his interests. The ideas behind are to support and strengthen lifelong

learning (a continuous on interests based learning) and also give the possibility to restart in higher age in a

new direction. Therefore the chances for starting and learning in the ICT sector when being older are far

better in Sweden than in average.

As we can see in more developed countries the problem is getting more complicated, the way the basic

infrastructure is given one has to go deeper into the details. In the aspect of E-Government this means that

it is important to look at present access and skill of the citizen and adapt the system as good as possible and

take supportive measures to improve unmentionable situations. More details can be found i.e. in [Béla

2009].

China

In [Li, L. 2008] Lue Li describes the influence of the digital divide on E-Governance as he comes across in

China Mainland and especially Macao SAR. He states the importance of educational efforts and lifelong

education. In the year 2008 only 16% of chines people use the internet. The other 84% didn’t use it because

of not knowing computers, or having the equipment (70%). Often Chinese didn’t have time (25%) or no

interest (15%). Even China was 2007 providing the second largest number of people using the internet (by

country) many people in China are not part of the developing ICT.

These three short examples showed what is meant by the gap between different states. As one can see

clearly this gap is relatively big between the developing nations and developed nations.

The next section will concentrate on the different aspects leading to these gaps and including smaller gaps

within a country.

10

Digital gaps, influencing aspects

This part gives a more detailed look on the digital divide thematic and tries to give an overview about the

persons which are affected, what is influencing the digital gaps and leading to them.

Figure III Digital gaps

Many pages could be field with this section, the way there are very many aspects influencing the gap.

Additional details can be found in the sources [OECD 2000], [Kraner 2004].

A lot of the important aspects are not technical measurable but of social nature maybe that’s why they are

often not taken fully into account. The most important aspects are listed in “Figure III Digital gaps” and

shortly described below.

Below the salt, access

This is a very basic aspect. As described in the section above the situation is not the same all over the

world, concerning ICT and access to ICT. But also within a country it’s infrastructure and geographical

location major differences can exist, such that access to ICT service is just not possible. Often this is simply a

problem of money, not enough money for the infrastructure in a country or over average expensive

locations. These people simply do have much more basic needs to deal with, then ICT.

ICT

Below the salt,

Access

Rich, poor

Technologies, infrastructure,

location,

Skill + Education

School basis, constructive

learning

Language, politics, social, economical, physical, disability,

minorities

Interest + apathy

Gender Woman /

Men

Age, lifelong learning,

workspace, ICT image

11

Missing skill, education, literacy and foreign language

As mentioned i.e. in [BBT 2004], [OECD 2000], [Kraner 2004], one of the important basic aspects beside

having or not having access is the educational basis. The way ICT is developing very fast and educational

systems have traditional learning methods which don’t adapt overnight but very slowly. Teachers will have

to adapt to new ICT methods. In school the gap of minorities, ethnic gaps, and cultural gap could be even

out. As ICT did become a very important part in economies it’s a basic component at most workplaces and

should therefore also become a stable far evolved component of the education system.

Another aspect is the foreign language in many countries the awareness is low because a typical state

normally supports not more than one or two official language. And in general as one can see when being

part of an University that states and advertises to be multilingual like University of Fribourg, such process

takes very long, including of minorities and different languages is difficult. More about the foreign language

problem can be found in chapter 5 of [OECD 2000].

An important influence has also the understanding of a language itself, the problem of Illetrismus. As

shown in [BBT 2004] the capability of being able to read and know how to learn constructively is a very

important ability to be able to really use ICT mainly based on displaying textual information in knowledge

and communicational sense.

Apathy, no need

The third basic aspect is the one that not everyone has interest or fascination about technical things. Often

this aspect is not mentioned in literature, the way it’s a vague and scientifically difficult to understand

aspect. Normally these studies are made by people liking the ICT the harder it is to accept that there are

people disliking this field at its very basis. The gender plays an important role as one can see when looking

at how many women or men are interacting how intense in many ICT areas like ICT job, computer games

and so on. Also the age plays an important role older people have problems to be motivated or deal with

the new ICT possibilities and tasks. The often have also no educational basis or skill in this area, the way

todays ICT didn’t exist when they were young.

These groups of ICT user are often overextended by using a computer dealing with all the bugs, instruction

windows, different program structures and problems when using ICT. That’s the way it is because it is often

more economical (in short term off view) to launch a new version of a product then release a good stable

one.

It can also be stated that the way informatics is a men dominated area, many programs and basic

structures are only adapted to man gender specific needs.

Many parts in informatics could be more user-friendly and need redesign and provide more stability. As

stated in [OECD 2000] “technology which doesn’t work well, can be demotivating those with least.”

12

Therefore one of the main goals in the EU program eEurope 2010 [eEurope 2010] is besides pushing the

amount of fast internet connections to higher the efficiency of service in E-Government. A goal is to

improve the bad image ICT is having in the mind of people such that as many people as possible can

overcome the bad attitude against ICT.

This short overview shows that there is not the digital divide gap but that the digital divide is characterized

by a brought variety of factors which are often not a problem of ICT itself. The problems are often not of

technical nature only but more based on social aspect. But technical aspects like bug, crashing software,

unstable services and so on should not be underestimated. See also [OECD 2000] Chapter 4. „landscape of

problems“. Some facts presented in a modern Web 2.0 way can be found also on YouTube [Didyk 2010].

In the next section a deeper look on the situation and available studies according the digital divide and E-

Government in Switzerland is given.

DIGITAL DIVIDE IN SWITZERLAND?

What does indicate a digital divide, how can we find out how far ICT is developed and used? This section

tries to answer these questions for Switzerland and show how the situation looks like. The focus is thereby

set on the internet the major and most basically part of ICT.

As one can easily see in Figure II above Switzerland has in 2008 internet coverage of 76%. This is the 10th

highest value in the World, see Table XI in Annex. 34% of the population doesn’t have only internet but a

faster broadband connection (World rank 7) see Table XII. Also in the E-Government ranking from [Unpan

2010] Switzerland is ranked in the top 20 on rank 18 see Annex Table XII. As this statistical ranking show in

a simple way Switzerland is far developed in the ICT sector but this numbers don’t describe the situation

and why i.e. 14% of the citizens don’t have an internet connection.

Internet usage

In 2006 the government published in the Departement EDI “Bundesamt für Statistik” a detailed survey

about internet usage in Switzerland [BFS 2006]. According to this study 61% of the households had an

internet connection in 2004 (compare with 66% stated by [Ency-N 2010]).

Table I shows how this value developed from 1990 to 2008 reaching 75.93%.

13

Table I Internet user in percent timeline

Why did 29% not use the Internet at home in 2004? As we can see in Table II the main reason why these

people don’t have an internet connection at home is that about 73% are not interested in to have one (55%

+18% = 73%, but multi-answer possible!). Eighteen percent of them use the internet somewhere else but

not at home. This group clearly belongs to the third group in the section above “Apathy, no need”. Another

reason for fifteen percent belonging in the second group “Missing skill, education, literacy and foreign

language” is to not have enough knowledge so they don’t feel able to use the internet. Finally ten percent

belong to the first group “Below the salt” and are not able to, or don’t want to spend money for an internet

connection.

Reasons for not having an internet connection

In Households without connection

I don’t need one 55%

Use somewhere else is enough 18%

Other reasons 18%

Not enough knowledge 15%

To expensive 10%

Table II Reasons for not having an Internet connection 2004

Age

Let’s have a closer look (see Table III) how having an internet connection is influenced by the age. Between

15 to 44 years the age seems not to influence the possession probability to have or to have no connection.

Compared to the 45-54 and 55-64 year groups and especially the over 64 year group this is changing. For

the first three groups twenty one percent don’t have an internet connection. But for older people above 45

years several reasons as seen above keep them away from having an internet connection. It seems that old

people, which didn’t get in touch with the internet when they were young, do have troubles to get in touch

with this new technology, or don’t have the interest to do so.

0.6 3.5

47.9

68.3

75.93

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1990 1995 2000 2005 2008

Internetuser %

14

Table III Age and having an internet connection 2004

Gender: Men and Woman and internet usage

It’s not only a question about the age if one has an internet connection or not the gender is also having a

big influence especially for older people as one can easily see in

Table IV.

It should be stated here that the big gender difference is not typical for Europe but could rely on other

gender specific aspects in Switzerland like political basis, level of educational, workplace and income.

Table IV Using Internet, age and gender 2004

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

15 to 24years

25 to 34years

35 to 44years

45 to 54years

55 to 64years

above 64years

21 22 21 29

42

80

79 78 79 71

58

20

have access

no access

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

15 to 24years

25 to 34years

35 to 44years

45 to 54years

55 to 64years

above 64years

Men

Woman

15

Education level

Table V Education level and internet use the last month 2004

As one can see in the Table V above the level of school education influences the monthly internet use

significantly. Low level stands for the obligatory school, middle level for Secondary School and high level for

University level. The main reason is the less use of internet in manual job’s (which are percentage chosen

most with low and middle level education).

According to [BFS 2006] internet usage during education is significantly below the European average and

should be improved.

Income

The level of income doesn’t have a direct influence on how often the internet was used the past month

(not only at home but in general). But it influences if a household has an internet connection itself see

Table VI and how many ICT devices are used in this household.

Table VI Income, using internet, having an internet connection 2004

62%

72%

88%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Low level Middle level Hight level

internet use lastmonth

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

< 3000 .- 3000 -5000.-

5000 -7000.-

7000 -9000.-

9000.- <

22% 32%

51%

68%

84% 73% 71% 70% 72% 77%

Household with internetconnection

Used internet last month

16

E-Commerce

Users of higher income class use the internet for purchase significantly more often than users of lower

income class. Except income regular shopping wasn’t influenced by other aspects like gender, age or

education level. Table VII shows how the E-Commerce turnover of private households evolved the past

years.

Table VII E-Commerce: expenditure of households via the Internet each year 2002-2008

E-Government: Internet use with public institutions

Regarding the internet use with public institutions Switzerland is only situated a little above the European

average what concerns information search (level 1). Exactly 49% of all internet users used webpages of

public institutions. What concerns downloading and sending information to and from public institution

Switzerland is far below average only 17% use in level 2, see Table VIII.

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Food 33 66 73 96 110 122 237

ICT equipment 157 387 142 249 268 262 343

Cultural service providers. 28 47 37 45 55 61 58

Books 18 59 44 76 52 47 51

Travel, accommodation 996 1'344 1'479

Other (including donations) 183 648 791 832 991 1'322 1'490

Total 420 1'207 1'087 1'298 2'473 3'158 3'659

0

500

1'000

1'500

2'000

2'500

3'000

3'500

4'000

In Million CHF

17

Table VIII E-Government Interaction Levels 2004

Expenditure on information and communication technologies

Table IX Expenditure on information and communication technologies in international comparison, 2006

As one can see in Table IX the expenditure on ICT in Switzerland is very high, rank 1 in ratio per inhabitants,

in ratio with the GDP on rank 3. We can therefore conclude that ICT is being a very important part of

Switzerland’s infrastructure.

Households with Personal Computers

Another indicator is simply the amount of households with Computers. These values are shown in Table X.

Switzerland is also in the leading group 81.4% of all households are equipped with a PC.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

19

%

22

%

22

%

17

%

17

%

25

%

20

%

26

%

27

%

11

%

62

%

56

%

51

%

50

%

49

%

44

%

44

% 35

%

34

%

31

%

Level 2activeInteraction

Level 1Informationsearch

1.52

2.37

1.40

1.71

3.27

3.08

2.91

2.76

3.20

3.20

1.81

3.32

3.52

3.69

3.75

3.45

2.28

1.56

3.21

3.06

2.14

2.34

2.85

3.04

2.82

2.83

4.29

3.05

3.04

2.95

3.51

4.20

Ireland

Norway

Spain

Italy

Un. States

France

Germany

Austria

Denmark

Finland

Portugal

Netherlands

Un. UK

Switzerland

Sweden

Japan

Informationtechnologie

Communicationtechnologie

18

Table X Households with at least one Personal Computer 2009

Other such indicators concerning the Swiss ICT society can be found on the BFS webpage [BFS 2010] or in

the Literature in the Reference Section.

In the next section possibilities to improve the situation in a political and educational approach will be

introduced. Future the meaning of this gap for E-Government will be discussed.

61.3 61.8 66.3

69.2 71.1 74.5

79.4 80.1 81.2 81.4 81.4 84.1 86.2 87.2 87.6 87.6 90.8

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

100.0

19

MEASURES AGAINST DIGITAL DIVIDE

As one can conclude after reading the last two sections digital divide is not a simple gap based on one or

two crack but an accumulation of many very different indentations. So many aspects, social political

aspects, scientific basis and so on have a big influence on this gap that therefore authors have also very

variable basic approaches how to deal with this problem. Langer [Langer 2007] is locating the main problem

on the theoretical scientific basis, which is not really clear and far evolved. He states that science isn’t sure

that such ICT gap is dangerous or abnormal for society. He thinks that this question and the question about

consequences of using ICT in long-term view on learning and knowing have to be answered in a more

pragmatic and scientific way. Then one could engage if one has found the correlative answers in a useful

way.

Other papers like [Kraner 2004] and [BBT 2004] are supposing that ICT is a basic indispensable element of

today’s society and knowledge acquiring. This may be logical in a strong technical approach, but doesn’t

have as criticized in [Langer 2007] a scientific well-grounded respected basis. As he states knowledge can

be important for realizing of social values and democratic interaction. The problem is that digital divide

sciences looks at knowledge as facts and state of knowledge and ignores social competences which are also

needed for such interactions (and not mainly if at all learned with ICT). Interdisciplinary studies to connect

these two different views of the thematic could help to find better more complete answers.

Beside this basic question about the importance of ICT, learning, and society the question about which

measure should be taken against a future growing of the digital divide and the wish of an evenly distributed

ICT world remains interesting.

Most of the proposed measures in literature can be assigned to one of the three groups from the

description in the section “Digital gaps, influencing aspects” above. The following Figure IV gives an

overview about such measures and tries to group them according to their major affiliation.

20

Figure IV Measures against the digital divide

Political basis

The first and most important aspect is the political basis. To put into practice all the future measures need a

politically stable (democratically) background. This system should provide a good regional policy to include

special needs and minorities. This should reduce right in the beginning the chance of creating gaps in the

social structures which would move along into ICT.

The public services provided by the state should be as user friendly and intuitive as possible. To maintain

citizen interested in the political aspects, provide qualitative and efficient services but also show them what

providing ideal ICT means. ICT topics are underrepresented in the political system of Switzerland. The

recent foundation of the pirateparty in canton Bern, Zürich and Basel only having ICT topics as their content

reflects this condition [pipa 2010]. Future interesting thoughts on the political basis can be found in [DEZA

2003]. But what should this basis provide and do? The next three sections try to answer this question

having a focus on “Below the salt; access”, “Educational problems”, and “Apathy, no need” problems.

As mentioned in the conclusion of [DEZA 2003] having a stable political system which gives enough time to

let change happen is also an important aspect of great weight.

Measures against the access problems

As already mentioned European programs [eEurope 2010] are already heavily investigating in this area by

supporting ICT infrastructure especially broadband internet connection availability. Another good method

Political basis

Access, B.t.s.

Education

Apathy

•Democratic principle

•Good regional policy

•Respecting minorities

•Comprehensive public services

•Provide infrastructure

•Reduce cost

•Accessibility and Usability in E-Health, E-Government, E-Learning, ICT

•Better school ICT integration

•Illetrismus support programs

•Life long learning programs

•Research promotion in ICT and knowledge

•Improve image: Usability, security, technology

•Generous time budget

21

is to reduce the cost to spread ICT also in the lower income classes. Further the accessibility for public

services E-Health, E-Government, E-Learning should be pushed on a high level respecting the Design for all

principals [dfap 2010] to reach as many citizens as possible. The internet access in public areas should also

be taken into account.

To take measures against in the global perspective seems to be very difficult and is not discussed here. But

it should be mentioned here that this would be an important part in development aid to make progress and

reach a more just distribution in the world.

Improving education, integrating ICT

Besides solving the access hardware problem another important point as everyone in the references below

agrees is the educational support for ICT. There are several possibilities to improve the situation in all the

three problem areas the way education is a very fundamental and durable part of every ones youth, very

formative for a person’s life. In the view of an improved ICT education the school system should be more

ICT friendly include more ICT educational courses but also a better integration of ICT in everyday school

tasks. It’s thereby important to not forget that research in this area about good learning methods with ICT

and knowledge acquiring is needed. Such that advantages and disadvantages are better known and can be

taken into account.

Beside ICT specific parts the school system should be modified in the sense we have seen for Sweden. This

means that a more flexible system exists in which adaptation to fast changes and new developments in

important sectors (like ICT) can be integrated in time. But also supporting programs in the sector lifelong

learning to support especially older people and keep them up to date. Another important aspect is the

Illetrismus problem, which could also be supported with school adaptation or special supporting courses.

For all this more research is needed to understand the problems consequences better. Science and society

has to be supported to being interested to find answer to such topics.

Measures against apathy, no need opinions

One of the most challenging parts is to convince people that ICT technologies can also be interesting for

them and are of need for them. The measures above don’t help in this area, additional ICT availability or

educational support may not convince all of them.

Other methods are more promisingly. For example the improvement of the image of ICT Jobs, or the area

itself should be improved further. The image of Informatics did become better the past years but younger

people and secondary school students do have a less positive image [Hasler 2010], precisely the once which

have the most potential to later getting involved in important ICT areas.

22

Future the image could be improved by making software and hardware more reliable and secure, this

wouldn’t be so difficult when focusing more on overall interests in this area, but today’s important ICT

economy is more focused on self-interests in a monopolist sense (i.e. Apple Store, Microsoft OS…).

Another important aspect is the Usability of ICT system, science in user assessment should be supported to

set the focus in ICT projects more on the end-users and avoid common problems when focusing only on

hardware and software needs.

CONCLUISON

Digital Divide in Switzerland

Many indicators above let suggest that Switzerland is in the leading group of ICT. It is one of the most

developed countries in ICT right after the Scandinavian Nations. As seen above and according to [BFS 2006]

in some areas like E-Government, E-Commerce and E-Health Switzerland is below average and making not

much progress.

Having a look at the internet connection availability and Internet usage it’s obvious that there exist a

relatively big digital divide. The divide is less about having access or not (level 1) but more about skill (level

2) and willingness (level 3). These two levels are mainly influenced by income and educational disparities.

There is also a big gap for the internet usage influenced mainly by age, education and gender disparities.

The spread of the internet is reaching more and more people but the gap of how often and for what it is

used within the groups mentioned above is not getting smaller but bigger.

Around 20% of all households still don’t have an internet connection or a PC. A majority of about 70%

doesn’t like to have one. Other reasons are not enough skill 15% and in 10% the costs are a problem.

This means that a major part would have to be convinced about the ICT technology and its use if the goal is

to change this situation. Another 10% would need financial help. All of them including the 15% part could

be supported by educational measures in ICT like it is practice in many other European countries (see

example of Sweden in section “Western World”).

Consequences for E-Government and Digital Divide

As one can see in the sections above it is not enough to only provide a new E-Government service structure

and think people will engage. Social structure and aspects are much more complicated and illogical in a

strong mathematical sense. This means one should always keep this in mind when providing such a service,

that one never reaches the entire citizen which may need an information or service. Therefore alternative

ways of interaction should be provided for every case.

23

It seems still not clear in scientific research that such E-Government services or ICT services in general are

really helping to improve interaction between a government and citizen. Doubts about such progressive

influence arise especially because of unsuccessful democratic televoting projects in Switzerland.

Beside the question about the usefulness of such services the question about knowledge acquiring with ICT

remains an open question.

If the goal is having a society with most equal rights in general, and specifically for E-Government and ICT

interactions, weak groups have to be supported and special pilot project and also ongoing projects have to

be realized.

To improve the image of ICT and motivate people to interact educational programs and improving of

usability, user involvement are needed. Even if it’s difficult to predict the future development in such a fast

changing ICT area such investments help to be better prepared for future changes.

24

REFERENCES

Literature:

Books:

Type: Lang. 1. [Langer 2007] Christian Langer, Digitale Spaltung, VDM Verlag, 2007,

Berlin, , Book ISBN-13: 9783836409162, Book

Book DE

2. [Meier 2009] Andras Meier, eDemocracy & eGovernment, Springerverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN-13: 9783642001291, Book

Book DE

WWW:

Name, Link Last visit: Type: Lang. 3. [BBT 2004] Bakom, Digitale Spaltung in der Schweiz

http://www.bakom.admin.ch/themen/infosociety/01693/index.html?lang=de&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1acy4Zn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCDdn59gGym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A

11.11.2010 Paper DE

4. [DEZA 2003] Richard Gerster and Andrea Haag, Diminishing the digital divide in Switzerland, Richterswil, October 2003 http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/background/themes/development/gerster-digital-divide.pdf

11.11.2010 Paper ENG

5. [Wiki 2010] Wikipedia, Digitale Kluft, Digital Divide, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitale_Kluft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

11.11.2010 Page DE / ENG

6. [OECD 2000] OECD, Learning to Bridge the Digital Divide http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/28/41284209.pdf

11.11.2010 Paper ENG

7. [Obi, T. 2008] Current topics in the discussion on the relationship between e-governance and education., Cairo 2008)., T. Janowski and T. A. Pardo http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1509096.1509138

15.10.2010 Paper ENG

8. [Béla 2009] Bélanger, F. and Carter, L., The impact of the digital divide on e-government use. Commun. ACM 2009, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1498765.1498801

15.10.2010 Paper ENG

9. [Li, L. 2008] Lue, Li, e-governance and digital divide: a case study of mainland China and Macao SAR. Cairo 2008, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1509096.1509203

15.10.2010 Paper ENG

10. [Payt 2003] Payton, F. C. 2003. Rethinking the digital divide, Commun. ACM 2003, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/777313.777318

15.10.2010 Paper ENG

11. [Diuf 2010] Course Information and Guidlines, according this Work http://diuf.unifr.ch/is/eGov_hs10

30.11.2010 Page ENG

12. [ACM 2010] ACM http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm

15.10.2010 Page ENG

13. [IEEEX 2010] Ieeexplore http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp

15.10.2010 Page ENG

14. [Wiki-EG 2010] E-Government, Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government

11.11.2010 Page DE

15. [Wiki-ED 2010] E-Democracy, Wikipedia 11.11.2010 Page DE

25

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Democracy 16. [Ency-N 2010] Encyclopedia of the Nations

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/WorldStats/World-Development-Indicators-Infrastructure.html

04.11.2010 Page ENG

17. [HIPC 2010] Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavily_Indebted_Poor_Countries http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPC

05.11.2010 Page ENG

18. [faz.net 2010] Claudia Bröll, Johannesburg, Faz.net, Africa http://www.faz.net/s/Rub4C34FD0B1A7E46B88B0653D6358499FF/Doc~E492CBDF669BA4B81ABF8D49CA2018115~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

05.11.2010 Page DE

19. [Alex 2008] Alexandra Appel, Africa, Philipps-Universität Marburg Fachbereich Geographie Medienlinks.de, http://medienlinks.de/alex/internet.pdf

05.11.2010 Paper DE

20. [Worldb 2008] Worldbank Data http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2

05.11.2010 Page ENG

21. [HDI 2010] Human Development Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

05.11.2010 Page

22. [Kraner 2004] Sonja Kraner, Bridging the Digital Divide in E-Government, Universität Zürich, 2004 http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/archive/mastertheses/DA_Arbeiten_2004/Kraner_Sonja.pdf

07.11.2010 Paper DE

23. [eEurope 2010] eEurope Program 2010 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/information_society/l24226j_de.htm

08.11.2010 Page ENG

24. [Spiegel 2010] Der Spiegel, Nr45, 2010 http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,ausg-4770,00.html

08.11.2010 Paper DE

25. [BFS 2006] Budesamt für Statistig, Internetnutzung in den Haushalten der Schweiz http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/16/22/publ.html?publicationID=2486

08.11.2010 Paper DE

26. [Unpan 2010] E-Government http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/datacenter/CountryView.aspx

09.11.2010 Page ENG

27. [BFS 2010] BFS, Admin, Informationsgesellschaft, http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/16/04.html

10.11.2010 Paper DE

28. [pipa 2010] Piratenpartei, pirateparty http://www.piratenpartei.ch/

14.11.2010 Page DE/ EN

29. [dfap 2010] Design for all principals in ICT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_for_All_%28in_ICT%29

14.11.2010 Page ENG

30. [Didyk 2010] Youtube Did you know 03.+04.+05 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

15.11.2010 Page ENG

31. [Hasler 2010] Imagestudie der Informatik http://www.haslerstiftung.ch/pdf/imagestudie_2008.pdf

15.11.2010 Paper DE

26

Sorted by topics:

E-Government: [Meier 2009], [Wiki-EG 2010], [Wiki-ED 2010], [eEurope 2010], [Unpan 2010], [BFS 2010] ICT, Digital divide worldwide: [Langer 2007], [Wiki 2010], [OECD 2000], [Obi, T. 2008], [Payt 2003], [Ency-N 2010], [HIPC 2010], [faz.net 2010], [Alex 2008], [Worldb 2008], [Kraner 2004], [pipa 2010], [dfap 2010] Digital divide in Switzerland: [BBT 2004], [DEZA 2003], [BFS 2006], [Hasler 2010] Digitale divide and politics: [DEZA 2003]

27

ANNEX

Internet users (per 100 people) - Communications - Infrastructure

- World Development Indicators (2008)

Rank Country Value

1 Iceland 90

2 Sweden 87.70

3 Netherlands 86.98

4 Denmark 83.34

5 Norway 82.52

6 Finland 82.48

7 Bermuda 79.44

8 Luxembourg 79.21

9 United Kingdom 76.02

10 Switzerland 75.93

11 United States 75.85

12 South Korea 75.79

13 North Korea 75.79

14 Germany 75.48

15 Canada 75.31

16 Japan 75.16

17 Antigua and Barbuda 75.03

18 Barbados 73.67

19 New Zealand 71.38

20 Austria 71.21

21 High income: OECD 71.08

22 Australia 70.78

23 Andorra 70.55

24 Singapore 69.64

25 High income 69.07

26 Belgium 68.10

27 France 67.95

28 Hong Kong 67.04

29 Estonia 66.24

30 Slovakia 65.96

31 Liechtenstein 65.96

32 United Arab Emirates 65.15

33 Greenland 63.91

34 Ireland 62.70

35 Euro area 62.61

36 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 60.49

37 Latvia 60.44

38 St. Lucia 58.75

39 Hungary 58.51

40 Czech Republic 57.82

41 Jamaica 57.31

42 Malaysia 55.80

43 Slovenia 55.69

44 Spain 55.40

45 Brunei Darussalam 55.32

46 San Marino 54.83

47 Lithuania 54.39

48 Bahrain 51.95

49 Croatia 50.47

50 Macau 49.22

51 Poland 48.99

52 High income: nonOECD 48.82

53 Guam 48.42

54 Malta 48.26

55 Israel 47.89

56 Montenegro 47.24

57 Serbia 44.90

58 Greece 43.11

59 Cayman Islands 42.40

60 Portugal 42.13

61 Italy 41.77

62 Macedonia 41.54

63 Uruguay 40.19

64 Seychelles 38.99

65 Cyprus 38.78

28

66 Colombia 38.50

67 Dominica 37.57

68 Brazil 37.52

69 Kuwait 36.66

70 Bulgaria 34.72

71 Bosnia and Herzegovina 34.66

72 New Caledonia 34.45

73 Turkey 34.37

74 Qatar 34.04

75 Morocco 33.04

76 St. Kitts and Nevis 32.53

77 Chile 32.47

78 Costa Rica 32.31

79 Belarus 32.09

80 Iran 31.96

81 Russia 31.88

82 Bahamas 31.54

83 Saudi Arabia 31.49

84 Upper middle income 30.59

85 Latin America & Caribbean 28.95

86 Ecuador 28.80

87 Romania 28.79

88 Europe & Central Asia 28.56

89 Azerbaijan 28.16

90 Argentina 28.11

91 Panama 27.49

92 Virgin Islands (U.S.) 27.31

93 Tunisia 27.11

94 Jordan 27.01

95 Guyana 26.85

96 Venezuela 25.66

97 Puerto Rico 25.29

98 Peru 24.72

99 Vietnam 24.17

100 Thailand 23.89

101 Albania 23.86

102 Georgia 23.78

103 Maldives 23.52

104 Moldova 23.39

105 Grenada 23.18

106 Aruba 22.76

107 Lebanon 22.53

108 China 22.50

109 Mauritius 22.22

110 Mexico 22.16

111 Dominican Republic 21.58

112 Cape Verde 20.61

113 Oman 20

114 East Asia & Pacific 19.44

115 Middle East & North Africa 18.88

116 Middle income 17.34

117 Syria 17.32

118 Trinidad and Tobago 17.02

119 Egypt 16.65

120 Kyrgyzstan 16.10

121 Nigeria 15.86

122 Sao Tome and Principe 15.48

123 Low & middle income 15.26

124 Micronesia 14.49

125 Paraguay 14.34

126 Guatemala 14.32

127 Lower middle income 13.95

128 Honduras 13.09

129 Cuba 12.94

130 Mongolia 12.49

131 Fiji 12.20

132 Algeria 11.93

133 Zimbabwe 11.40

134 Pakistan 11.14

135 Kazakhstan 10.89

136 Bolivia 10.83

137 El Salvador 10.60

29

138 Belize 10.56

139 Ukraine 10.54

140 Sudan 10.16

141 Haiti 10.13

142 Suriname 9.71

143 West Bank and Gaza 9.04

144 Uzbekistan 9.04

145 Tajikistan 8.78

146 Kenya 8.67

147 South Africa 8.60

148 Laos 8.50

149 Senegal 8.35

150 Tonga 8.11

151 Indonesia 7.92

152 Uganda 7.90

153 Vanuatu 7.27

154 Gambia 6.88

155 Swaziland 6.85

156 Bhutan 6.55

157 Sub-Saharan Africa 6.54

158 Botswana 6.25

159 Philippines 6.22

160 Armenia 6.21

161 Gabon 6.21

162 Sri Lanka 5.77

163 Zambia 5.55

164 Togo 5.42

165 Namibia 5.33

166 Libya 5.13

167 Samoa 5.03

168 South Asia 4.73

169 Low income 4.64

170 India 4.54

171 Republic of the Congo 4.29

172 Ghana 4.27

173 Eritrea 4.06

174 Cameroon 3.80

175 Marshall Islands 3.69

176 Heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) 3.63

177 Lesotho 3.58

178 Comoros 3.57

179 Nicaragua 3.26

180 Ivory Coast 3.21

181 Rwanda 3.09

182 Angola 3.05

183 Guinea-Bissau 2.35

184 Djibouti 2.26

185 Least developed countries: UN

classification 2.24

186 Malawi 2.13

187 Kiribati 2.07

188 Solomon Islands 1.96

189 Mauritania 1.87

190 Benin 1.85

191 Papua New Guinea 1.82

192 Equatorial Guinea 1.82

193 Nepal 1.73

194 Afghanistan 1.72

195 Madagascar 1.65

196 Yemen 1.61

197 Mali 1.57

198 Mozambique 1.56

199 Turkmenistan 1.49

200 Tanzania 1.22

201 Chad 1.19

202 Somalia 1.14

203 Iraq 0.98

204 Guinea 0.92

205 Burkina Faso 0.92

206 Burundi 0.81

207 Niger 0.54

208 Liberia 0.53

30

209 Cambodia 0.51

210 Ethiopia 0.45

211 Central African Republic 0.44

212 Bangladesh 0.35

213 Sierra Leone 0.25

214 Burma 0.22

Copyright © 2010 Advameg, Inc.

Table XI

Fixed broadband Internet subscribers (per 100

people) - Communications - Infrastructure - World

Development Indicators (2008)

Rank Country Value

1 Barbados 64.81

2 Liechtenstein 55.01

3 Bermuda 52.89

4 Sweden 41.12

5 Denmark 36.88

6 Netherlands 35.31

7 Switzerland 33.68

8 Norway 33.26

9 Iceland 32.67

10 South Korea 31.84

11 North Korea 31.84

12 Finland 30.45

13 Canada 29.55

14 Luxembourg 29.31

15 France 28.41

16 United Kingdom 28.13

17 Hong Kong 28.13

18 Belgium 27.66

19 Germany 27.52

20 High income: OECD 25.01

21 Andorra 24.67

22 Malta 24.50

23 High income 24.05

24 United States 24.05

25 Australia 23.98

26 Euro area 23.96

27 Estonia 23.71

28 Japan 23.58

29 Macau 23.07

30 Israel 23.04

31 St. Kitts and Nevis 22.57

32 New Zealand 21.43

33 Slovenia 21.11

34 Austria 20.74

35 Singapore 20.73

36 Ireland 20.14

37 Spain 19.75

38 Italy 18.86

39 Lithuania 17.57

40 Aruba 17.44

41 Hungary 17.43

42 Czech Republic 16.88

43 Cyprus 16.37

44 San Marino 15.80

45 Portugal 15.39

46 Antigua and Barbuda 14.52

47 High income: nonOECD 14.37

48 Bahrain 14.18

49 Dominica 14.08

50 Greece 13.41

51 Poland 12.57

52 United Arab Emirates 12.43

53 Croatia 11.83

54 Romania 11.65

55 Slovakia 11.18

56 Bulgaria 11.07

31

57 New Caledonia 10.32

58 Bahamas 10.08

59 Montenegro 9.99

60 Grenada 9.79

61 St. Lucia 9.11

62 Macedonia 8.87

63 Latvia 8.83

64 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 8.58

65 Chile 8.49

66 Qatar 8.07

67 Argentina 7.99

68 Turkey 7.78

69 Uruguay 7.33

70 Mauritius 7.23

71 Mexico 7.14

72 Russia 6.54

73 Europe & Central Asia 6.34

74 China 6.29

75 Serbia 6.14

76 Upper middle income 5.88

77 Panama 5.76

78 Puerto Rico 5.42

79 Brazil 5.26

80 Maldives 5.15

81 Lebanon 5.03

82 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4.99

83 Belarus 4.94

84 Malaysia 4.93

85 Latin America & Caribbean 4.88

86 Venezuela 4.76

87 East Asia & Pacific 4.63

88 Trinidad and Tobago 4.58

89 Saudi Arabia 4.25

90 Colombia 4.23

91 Kazakhstan 4.22

92 Seychelles 3.93

93 Jamaica 3.62

94 Brunei Darussalam 3.56

95 Ukraine 3.46

96 Middle income 3.26

97 Moldova 3.17

98 Low & middle income 2.78

99 Lower middle income 2.59

100 West Bank and Gaza 2.54

101 Peru 2.52

102 Belize 2.39

103 Costa Rica 2.38

104 Vietnam 2.38

105 Jordan 2.32

106 Dominican Republic 2.27

107 Georgia 2.23

108 Tunisia 2.20

109 Albania 2.04

110 El Salvador 2.01

111 Fiji 1.85

112 Guam 1.54

113 Morocco 1.53

114 Cape Verde 1.48

115 Kuwait 1.47

116 Paraguay 1.43

117 Algeria 1.41

118 Thailand 1.41

119 Mongolia 1.37

120 Philippines 1.16

121 Oman 1.15

122 Suriname 1.12

123 Egypt 0.94

124 South Africa 0.87

125 Middle East & North Africa 0.84

126 Tonga 0.70

127 Azerbaijan 0.69

128 Bolivia 0.68

32

129 Nicaragua 0.64

130 Guatemala 0.58

131 Sri Lanka 0.51

132 Palau 0.48

133 Sao Tome and Principe 0.47

134 Botswana 0.46

135 India 0.46

136 Iran 0.42

137 Senegal 0.39

138 South Asia 0.36

139 Bhutan 0.30

140 Solomon Islands 0.29

141 Djibouti 0.29

142 Low income 0.26

143 Ecuador 0.26

144 Guyana 0.26

145 Uzbekistan 0.24

146 Indonesia 0.18

147 Mauritania 0.18

148 Armenia 0.16

149 Libya 0.16

150 Gabon 0.15

151 Zimbabwe 0.14

152 Sudan 0.11

153 Cambodia 0.11

154 Sub-Saharan Africa 0.11

155 Laos 0.10

156 Ghana 0.10

157 Pakistan 0.10

158 Micronesia 0.10

159 Angola 0.09

160 Kyrgyzstan 0.09

161 Samoa 0.09

162 Swaziland 0.07

163 Vanuatu 0.07

164 Heavily indebted poor countries 0.06

(HIPC)

165 Turkmenistan 0.05

166 Mozambique 0.05

167 Syria 0.05

168 Ivory Coast 0.05

169 Tajikistan 0.05

170 Nigeria 0.04

171 Least developed countries: UN

classification 0.04

172 Rwanda 0.04

173 Mali 0.04

174 Zambia 0.04

175 Bangladesh 0.03

176 Togo 0.03

177 Nepal 0.03

178 Burkina Faso 0.03

179 Benin 0.03

180 Equatorial Guinea 0.03

181 Madagascar 0.02

182 Cuba 0.02

183 Gambia 0.02

184 Tanzania 0.02

185 Uganda 0.02

186 Burma 0.02

187 Malawi 0.02

188 Namibia 0.02

189 Lesotho 0.01

190 Kenya 0.01

191 Haiti 0

192 Iraq 0

193 Guinea-Bissau 0

194 Guinea 0

195 Ethiopia 0

196 Burundi 0

197 Eritrea 0

198 Afghanistan 0

33

199 Chad 0

200 Comoros 0

201 Republic of the Congo 0

202 Papua New Guinea 0

203 Cameroon 0

204 Honduras 0

205 Yemen 0

206 Niger 0

207 Central African Republic 0

208 Somalia 0

Copyright © 2010 Advameg, Inc.

Table XII

Table XIII

35

Table XIV

Table XV

Table XVI

36

Table XVII

37

Table XVIII

38

Statement