This link has been bookmarked by 29 people . It was first bookmarked on 16 Sep 2006, by Kevin.
-
12 Feb 14
-
03 Jul 13
Jelena ObradovicHalf the world's population has never made a phone call... Really?
-
14 Jun 13
-
11 Jun 13
Slavisa BajicNa ovom linku nalazi se tekst Kleja Širkija o internetu pod nazivom: "Clay Shirky's Writings About the Internet,
Economics and Culture, Media and Community, Open Source." -
04 Jan 13
-
23 Dec 12
-
22 Dec 12
-
21 Dec 12
-
In 1995, Brunei had almost twice as many land lines and 50 times as many cell phones per capita as Poland, not to mention more than twice the per capita GDP. By the end of 2000, Poland exceeded Brunei in land lines, and had even matched it in cell phone penetration. Brunei is smaller, easier to wire, and much much richer, but Poland has something that all Brunei's money can't buy -- a dynamic economy. Ireland similarly outgrew Denmark and Egypt outgrew Kuwait, even though the faster growing countries were the poorer ones.
The Democratic Republic of Congo lost 16 thousand of its 36 thousand fixed lines but grew overall, because it added 140 thousand cell phones. Its unsurprising that people would abandon the state as a provider of telephones in a country riven by civil war. What is surprising is that Venezuela had the same pattern. Venezuela, with a monopoly telecom provider, saw its per capita penetration of land lines fall by 0.3% annually, while cell phone use exploded. In both cases, the state was an obstacle to telephone usage, but the presence of a private alternative meant that telephone penetration could nevertheless increase.
-
-
09 Mar 12
marcell mars"But saying "Half the world has never made a phone call" makes no more sense than saying "My car goes from 0 to 60" or "It rained 15 inches." Without including the element of time, you cannot talk about rate, and it is rate that matters in dynamic systems. Half the world had never made a phone call on what date? And what has the rate of telecom growth been since that date? Because it is that calculation and only that calculation which could tell us anything important about the digital divide."
-
But saying "Half the world has never made a phone call" makes no more sense than saying "My car goes from 0 to 60" or "It rained 15 inches." Without including the element of time, you cannot talk about rate, and it is rate that matters in dynamic systems. Half the world had never made a phone call on what date? And what has the rate of telecom growth been since that date? Because it is that calculation and only that calculation which could tell us anything important about the digital divide.
-
-
11 Oct 11
nathannelsonMuch upside for #ict4d RT @whiteafrican: Quote by @cshirky "Half of humanity has not yet made a phone call" http://t.co/LXq534bl
-
16 Dec 10
-
04 Apr 10
-
01 Mar 09
-
26 Dec 06
Tom Hemingwayexamination of the notion that half the world's population has never made a phone cal and whether it is useful for discussing ICT developments
-
16 Sep 06
-
30 Oct 05
-
29 Mar 05
-
15 Oct 04
-
The phrase "Half the world has never made a phone call" or some variation thereof has become an urban legend, a widely believed but unsubstantiated story about the nature of the world. It has appeared countless times over the last decade, in essentially the same form and always without attribution. Where did that phrase come from? How did it take on such a life of its own? And, most importantly, why has it gotten so much airtime in the debate over the digital divide when it is so obviously wrong? ... So, in 2002, what can we conclude about the percentage of the world that has made a phone call? The first, and less important answer to that question goes like this: Between 1995 and 2000, the world's population rose by about 8%. Meanwhile, the number of land lines rose by 50%, and the number of cellular subscribers by over 1000%. Contrary to the hopelessness conveyed by The Phrase, telephone penetration is growing much faster than population. It is also growing faster in the developing world than in the developed world. Outside the OECD, growth was about 130% for land lines and over 2,300% for cellular phones -- 14 million subscribers at the beginning of 1995 and 342 million by the end of 2000. If we assume that LeVert's original guess of half was right in 1994 (a big if), the new figure would be "Around two-thirds and still rising." There is another answer to that question though, which is much more important: It doesn't matter. No snapshot of telephone penetration matters, because the issue is not amount but rate. If you care about the digital divide, and you believe that access to communications can help poor countries to grow, then pontificating about who has or hasn't made a phone call is worse than a waste of time, it actively distorts your view of the possible solutions because it emphasizes a stasist attitude.
-
The phrase "Half the world has never made a phone call" or some variation thereof has become an urban legend, a widely believed but unsubstantiated story about the nature of the world. It has appeared countless times over the last decade, in essentially the same form and always without attribution. Where did that phrase come from? How did it take on such a life of its own? And, most importantly, why has it gotten so much airtime in the debate over the digital divide when it is so obviously wrong? ... So, in 2002, what can we conclude about the percentage of the world that has made a phone call? The first, and less important answer to that question goes like this: Between 1995 and 2000, the world's population rose by about 8%. Meanwhile, the number of land lines rose by 50%, and the number of cellular subscribers by over 1000%. Contrary to the hopelessness conveyed by The Phrase, telephone penetration is growing much faster than population. It is also growing faster in the developing world than in the developed world. Outside the OECD, growth was about 130% for land lines and over 2,300% for cellular phones -- 14 million subscribers at the beginning of 1995 and 342 million by the end of 2000. If we assume that LeVert's original guess of half was right in 1994 (a big if), the new figure would be "Around two-thirds and still rising." There is another answer to that question though, which is much more important: It doesn't matter. No snapshot of telephone penetration matters, because the issue is not amount but rate. If you care about the digital divide, and you believe that access to communications can help poor countries to grow, then pontificating about who has or hasn't made a phone call is worse than a waste of time, it actively distorts your view of the possible solutions because it emphasizes a stasist attitude.
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.