The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has noted what it described as “worrying gaps” in connectivity and Internet access in least developed countries.
In a news statement, the ITU said in least developed countries, around 17 percent of the rural population live in areas with no mobile coverage at all, and 19 percent of the rural population is covered by only a 2G network.
This is a huge disparity from the figure for urban households, of which, 72 percent had access to Internet at home. This is almost twice as much versus the ones in rural areas, which is at 38 percent as of 2019.
“How much longer can we tolerate the significant gap in household connectivity between urban and rural areas,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “In the age of Covid-19, where so many are working and studying from home, this edition of Measuring Digital Development: Facts and figures sends the clear message that accelerating infrastructure rollout is one of the most urgent and defining issues of our time.”
In the Philippines, 17.7 percent of all households have Internet connection, according to the National ICT Household Survey, which was conducted by the Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute and the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Moreover, seven out of 10 barangays do not have access to fiber-optic cables, while 64 percent lack access to a cellular towers. It is much worse in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and in the regions of Bicol, Eastern Visayas, Cagayan Valley, Mimaropa, Northern Luzon, Palawan and Central Visayas, which are all either unserved or underserved, according to the National Telecommunications Commission. Zhao noted that the latest ITU data demonstrate that the rollout of mobile-broadband networks has been slowing in 2020.
According to the ITU, while 4G network coverage double globally between 2015 and 2020 to 85 percent coverage, the annual growth has been slowing down gradually since 2017, and 2020 coverage is only 1.3 percentage points higher than 2019.
In addition to infrastructure roll-out, the digital gender divide, lack of digital skills and affordability continue to be major barriers to meaningful participation in a digital society, especially in the developing world where mobile telephony and Internet access remain too expensive for many, the ITU noted.
Image credits: AP/Elise Amendola