Examines broadband developments and policies, and highlights challenges such as connecting users to fibre-based networks or coverage of rural areas.

Examines broadband developments and policies, and highlights challenges such as connecting users to fibre-based networks or coverage of rural areas.

This joint initiative by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the OECD seeks to encourage the expansion of broadband networks and services in the region, supporting a coherent and cross-sectorial approach, to maximise their benefits for economic and social development.

Access to broadband connectivity is a country s passport to the global information society and knowledge economy the future. However, the adoption and use of broadband technology today remains extremely uneven and threatens to create a new digital divide. At the end of 2009, countries in North America and the European Union accounted for more than 50 percent of the world s 1 billion fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions, but South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa together accounted for less than 3 percent. The experience with mobile telephony though shows the potential for growth in the information and communication technology sector in developing countries. Almost 75 percent of the world s mobile telephone subscriptions are in low- and middle-income countries, which have also promoted exciting innovations and realized significant economic development benefits. In fact, a growing number of countries are seeking to spur broadband development. To aid governments as they design their own programs, this volume offers examples and ideas from some of the most successful broadband markets: particularly the Republic of Korea, but also Finland, France, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 'Building Broadband' does not suggest a universal solution but rather provides a long list of policies and programs organized within a strategic framework that allows solutions tailored to country circumstances. The essential building blocks identified are useful everywhere because they focus on improving incentives and the climate for private investment. This is a policy that even countries with very limited resources will be able to exploit.

This report updates developments in terms of the roll out of broadband access in OECD countries. It does not aim to provide a definitive description of the technological alternatives or the applications for which it is being used but rather to ...

The development of broadband access to the Internet is gaining increasing prominence. This is occurring in fields that go well beyond communications policy. One reason for this is the role advanced communication capabilities may have played in generating higher growth in productivity rates, as well as new networkbased economic activities, in some countries over recent years. If, as many believe, new communication tools such as the Internet and wireless networks boosted growth in the latter half of the 1990s, and softened the current cyclical downturn, then the next steps toward broadband access are of critical importance that go beyond the communications sector. The current bottleneck to growth in the communications sector, and beyond for areas such as electronic commerce, is the limitations of local access networks. These limitations are not just technological. The inheritance of many decades of monopoly provision of access networks is that there is usually only one, or at best two, networks passing most homes and businesses in OECD countries. In some cases the same company still owns both these networks.

As have OECD countries, Colombia has recognised that the communications sector, and in particular high-speed Internet access provided by fixed and mobile broadband, represents a key infrastructure for improving productivity and economic growth and in enhancing the welfare of its citizens. This report reviews policies and regulations in the telecommunication service sector in Colombia. It puts forward recommendations aimed at furthering regulatory reform and stimulating market competition and investment in the sector as a building block for the future development of the Colombian economy. It aims to help achieve one of the government's goals, which is to develop a knowledge-intensive society.