José Luis Gómez Barroso

Public policies against the digital divide: a necessary adaptation to different degrees of development

The notion of the digital divide encompasses many different dimensions. As a matter of fact, more than digital divide, we should talk about digital divides. Access to ICTs and usage are the two variables that determine the width of the divide. The adequate consideration of these two factors is, thus, necessary in any public programme focusing on fighting against the digital divide. The purpose of this article is to move forward in the understanding of what the digital divide implies according to the level of development of the different countries and, from that point, to analyse the challenges they must face and the different paths they can take to go beyond them.

Service Universalisation in Latin America: Network Evolution and Strategies

During the last two decades Latin American countries liberalised and, most of them, privatised their telecommunications industry. The reform aimed at increasing and maintaining public telephone networks while introducing a real and sustainable competition. All in all, the analysis reveals that, although teledensity rates have increased, the results are worse than expected. At the same time, and since the start of this decade, governments are more aware of the fact that the access of the whole population to telecommunication services is essential for the economic development of their countries and for the reduction of poverty. Thus, twenty years after the beginning of this process, an analysis of representative Latin American countries policies and their performance on the fixed telephone network evolution allows to provide some guidelines for the design of policies oriented towards the achievement of not just the traditional approach of universal service, but a new service and access universalisation.