Universal Internet Access Unlikely Until at Least 2050, Experts Say (theguardian.com)

Parts of the world will be excluded from the internet for decades to come without major efforts to boost education, online literacy and broadband infrastructure, experts have warned. From a report: While half the world's population now uses the internet, a desperate lack of skills and stagnant investment mean the UN's goal of universal access, defined as 90% of people being online, may not be reached until 2050 or later, they said. The bleak assessment highlights the dramatic digital divide that has opened up between those who take the internet and its benefits for granted and those who are sidelined because they either lack the skills to be online, cannot afford access or live in a region with no connection. "If there is any kind of faltering in the rate of people coming online, which it appears that there is, then we'll have a real challenge in getting 70%, 80% or 90% connected," said Adrian Lovett, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, an organisation set up by the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Comments

Starlink

[Tomahawk]

What about SpaceX's Starlink? Surely that will be online long before 2050...

Re:Starlink

[n2hightech]

There will be more than just 1 earth covering satellite communications system and it will be likely that old cell phones from a few years into the future will be able to access the system. With the improvements in voice recognition and translation no one will need any real "Skills" to access the system. We will be able to just talk to the system and ask it questions and it will respond. The only thing they will need is a power source which will come from cheep solar. As quick as things are changing and costs are dropping this should happen in 10 to 20 years not over 30. Not tomorrow but sooner than 2050.

Re:Starlink

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right. There is talk of having, even in the most remote villages, a platform with Tesla solar panels and batteries, and a Starlink array with a Wi-Fi repeater on it, or whatever it is current at the time. This article probably means government-sponsored efforts, but the Muskovites will have us pretty much all online in the coming decade.

Lack of leadership.

[jellomizer]

We have had a general lack of leadership for the past 50 years, which makes performing large infrastructure projects like this nearly impossible.

In America the biggest problem facing us isn't immigration, guns, abortion, or tax rates. But it is that we are running off generation(s) old infrastructure, for Communication, Power Transmission, Transportation, and Water. In Rural areas of America if you drive down the roads, which are often too twisted and unkempt for a fast enough driving speed, and not wide enough for multi-lane, there are modified telegraph poles, that hold haphazardly Power, Telephone, Cable, and sometime Fiber Optic, which due to the bad roads sometimes will get hit by a car and knock out a good chunk of your infrastructures in one spot. Then we have water supplies which is being polluted from older Industrial activity, or in water manes made while Lincoln was president, which are breaking and needing to be patched up, while chunks of cities need a boil water advisory.

We are living with an infrastructure of the early 20th century, which has been hacked and updated. Our Elected officials havn't been much of leaders taking advice from experts and working the tradeoffs and making a plan of action and pushing it. They have been just putting out fires, and trying to get money for their fixes.

'Putting the cart before the horse'

[Rick Schumann]

I think perhaps we should work more on 'universal access' to clean water, enough food to eat, and safe countries to live in for everyone, before we worry about 'universal internet access'. It's kinda hard to enjoy watching the box-centric antics of Maru on YouTube when you're dying of dehydration, malnutrition, or the local Warlord or Druglord is kicking in the door of your shack to steal your children, kill you, or both. Google, Facebook, and whoever else, can just wait their turn to monetize the rest of the 7,000,000,000 on this planet whose personal information they haven't been able to monetize yet.

Re:'Putting the cart before the horse'

[ljw1004]

I think perhaps we should work more on 'universal access' to clean water, enough food to eat, and safe countries to live in for everyone, before we worry about 'universal internet access'. It's kinda hard to enjoy watching the box-centric antics of Maru on YouTube when you're dying of dehydration, malnutrition, or the local Warlord or Druglord is kicking in the door of your shack to steal your children, kill you, or both. Google, Facebook, and whoever else, can just wait their turn to monetize the rest of the 7,000,000,000 on this planet whose personal information they haven't been able to monetize yet.

Your reasons seem fair. But the opposite reason is that internet access is what will *enable* folks to do better - better market prices for their produce, better job opportunities, better oversight of their leaders, better community organization.

Wrong word

[rossdee]

Universal means not just this planet, or just this star system or even just this galaxy .

First we need to develop a means of FTL communication

Will anyone care?

[rnturn]

In a few years, governments and their corporate overlords may very well have turned the Internet into something that you may not even want to connect to if it's available in your locale.