Satellites, the solution for the digital wilderness in the poorest countries

Only a third of people in the world’s poorest countries are connected to the Internet, an Internet agency said Sunday. UNat a time when private initiatives are being developed to provide communication through satellites.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), only 36% of the 1,250 million inhabitants of these 46 nations, known as the least developed countries (LDCs), can connect a computer to a network.

In Europe, more than 90% of the population can do this.

digital giants such as Microsoft or starlink They offer solutions to alleviate this lack of connections.

“digital divide” it has increased over the past decade, ITU notes on the sidelines of the LDC summit in Qatar.

This issue became one of the main topics of the meeting, since access to Internet it also represents access to knowledge, markets and opportunities.

“The digital revolution has forgotten you, without the technological support you need,” said Secretary General UNAntonio Guterres.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is four times the size of Germany, only a quarter of its population is connected to the network. The network is relatively decent in Kinshasa and other major cities, but a huge part of the country where fighting between insurgent groups takes place remains a digital wasteland.

Price drop

At the Doha summit, several companies said they had part of the solution.

One of them, Microsoftpromises to provide Internet access to 100 million Africans by 2025.

The American company announced the launch of the first phase in December, when five million people will be connected by the group’s low-orbit satellites. Viasat.

Another 20 million will go through the African Telecommunicator Liquid Reasonable technologies.

The president MicrosoftBrad Smith explained that these predictions were made possible by the fact that “technological costs have dropped significantly and continue to drop.”

“With fixed line technologies, we can reach a lot more people than we could 5, 10 or 15 years ago,” he added.

starlinkbillionaire Elon Musk, his company launched thousands of satellites into orbit. SpaceXbetween 500 and 700 km from Earth.

“We are optimistic about what digital can do for development,” Smith emphasized, while acknowledging that the private sector remains “underinvested and underdeveloped” in the LDCs.

On your side, Liquid Reasonable It claims to have about 100,000 km of terrestrial fiber on the continent, as well as a strong satellite network.

“In remote regions, satellite is often the only or most reliable technology for fast, 24/7 broadband access,” says Nick Rudnick, Vice President Liquid Reasonable. (AFP)

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