While faster adoption is expected between 2025 and 2040 with the emergence of IoT technology solutions and decentralized networks such as blockchain, the question remains whether some countries will be left behind in the current global socio-economical developments and if they will ever catch up.
Economies are going digital, and all the most innovative educational, social and economic opportunities are found online. With more affordable academic programs, decentralized digital economies, and the ability to connect with anyone worldwide, the Internet evolved to play a significant role in empowering people worldwide.
If you currently have a terrible internet connection, or you don’t have it continuously, in this article, you will discover how to obtain it today no matter where you live.
Why Is the Internet Today Not Accessible to Everyone?
Close your eyes and imagine not having internet on your smartphone or any other device and having to go to specific places to rent a computer for hours to do what you have to do with a lousy internet connection.
Yes, it sounds awful or out of this century even, but, unfortunately, that’s the reality of two-thirds of the world’s school-age children and billions of people worldwide who lost their internet connection because of COVID-19.
Nevertheless, bringing technology to less-developed countries is a Herculean task, which will take a long time and a vast budget to become a reality. Here is why.
Limited IT Infrastructure
A good internet connection in developing nations is not a luxury. Instead, it is essential for economic and social growth. Moreover, it’s a solid instrument for supplying critical services such as education and health care.
Only about 35 percent of the population in developing countries has access to the internet. However, people can’t wait for their authorities to follow the slow path of implementing traditional IT infrastructure, making wireless technologies like peer-to-peer cloud solutions a priority to overcome these difficulties in the shortest time possible.
Economic Impact of a Good Internet Connection on Developing Nations
To have a clear idea of how technology helps developing countries, the Imperial College Business School conducted extensive research on this topic in 2017. As a result, it is critically estimated that a 10% increase in mobile broadband penetration causes between 0.6%-2.8% increase in the gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, its impact is enormous in the short term.
Better IT Infrastructure for Companies and Entrepreneurs
Another immediate consequence of having 5G internet technology in developing countries is providing companies and entrepreneurs with better IT infrastructure to build their projects, translating into better job opportunities (quality and quantity).
A robust technological infrastructure makes every sector have better conditions to produce, distribute, and sell their products/services at more competitive prices, which lets the internal market be more assertive and have better export policies.
An investigation made by UNCTAD shows that the evolution of 4.0 technologies will have this tendency.
This means that developing countries’ governments must align their investments and development policies with frontier technologies (IoT technology has the highest budget) to maximize the benefits of applying 5G internet to their societies.
Nevertheless, any investment or development effort will not be worth developing if developing countries do not have a quality internet connection. And following the current trends of related public investments, it will most likely take several more years to become a reality.
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