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International Internet Infrastructure Triples
bda writes: "TeleGeography has just published this year's statistics for international Internet infrastructure growth, aka how much capacity goes where. Worldwide, Internet bandwidth nearly tripled (174 percent growth), but behind it are some pretty big differences -- growth ranged from 90 percent (less than doubling) for Africa to 479 percent (almost sextupling) for Latin America. City-wise, the top interregional hubs connecting between continents were New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, SF, Tokyo, Washington DC, Miami, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, in that order. So the Internet is still fairly U.S.-centric ... but still becoming less so. Asia-Pac's ratio of out-of-region to in-region international capacity went from 7:1 to 4:1; Lat Am's from 36:1 to 7:1. The most obvious factor in long-haul Internet bandwidth growth seems to be whether or not someone has plunged ahead and laid dark fiber. When we looked at trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific capacity, Internet capacity stayed pretty constant at 10 percent of what was theoretically possible over lit fiber." You can read the executive summary (pdf), or you can (gulp) pay $1,995 for the whole thing. That would work out to about 50 copies of the Atlas of Cyberspace.
Iraq has Internet, but only for the military. It is illegal to even own a modem in Iraq. Faxes, copiers, typewriters, etc. have to be registered. Satellite dishes are banned, although people do assemble and camouflage them. Foreign magazines coming into the country are censored, often arriving with certain pages torn out. The government keeps very tight control of any news coming into the country. The internet would be harder to control, so it is banned. Saddam recently declared that the internet is a sinister tool used by governments for brainwashing people and spreading pornography.
Nizar Hamdoun, Iraq's retiring UN ambassador, in a recent interview, said that when he returns to Iraq, he will try to open internet access to the country. He thinks the internet is very useful, and would like Iraqi kids to enjoy the benefits. Hamdoun designed the Iraqi UN mission's web site.
Iraq has international telephone access, which is also often monitored. The network was targeted and damaged during the Gulf War and the recent bombing. So service is sporadic.