Connect the unconnected: Enable Inclusive Digital Villages and Narrow Digital Divide with Universal Services
Lunch Break Side Event Sponsored by Huawei
12:15-13:30 (GMT+7) 13 September 2023
1. Objective of this panel
The aim is to organize a lunch panel to dive into the key challenges, progress, and industry policies of different countries’ regulators in enabling digital villages with universal services.
The target audience includes regulatory directors and working teams, operators, ICT companies, and international & regional organizations.
2. Background and value
Countries in the Pacific are increasingly adopting digital transformation. The region has seen the rise of digital policies, plans and strategies, digital infrastructure, smart villages, and the rise of digital services and applications. This trend and the urgency of more inclusive digital infrastructure have been further accelerated during COVID-19.
ITU has proposed the 'Connect 2030 Agenda for Global Telecommunication/ICT Development' to bridge the digital divide and support the development of the digital economy and society. According to this target, by 2023, broadband service should cover 96% of the world's population, and more than half of the broadband users in 40% of countries should have a network speed of more than 10 Mbit/s. Currently, the broadband in the Asia-Pacific EM market still lags far behind the ITU's target.
- Thailand: More than 40,000 villages do not have 4G/fiber broadband connections. Village health centers and remote schools lack broadband connections. The digital divide between urban and rural areas is widening.
- Malaysia: About 1 million (3%) people in remote mountainous areas/islands are still not covered by 4G networks, including 800 indigenous villages.
- Indonesia: More than 7,000 remote and poor villages and 1200 medical centers are not covered by communications networks.
- Cambodia: About 1.4 million (9%) people in remote mountainous areas are not covered by mobile networks, and user experience in tourist areas such as Angkor Wat is still unstable.
- Laos: The mobile network coverage is less than 75% of the population, and the 4G coverage is less than 60%, ranking the last in ASEAN. The network experience gap between Laos and China along the China-Laos railway keeps growing.
- Papua New Guinea: The 4G network coverage is less than 55% of the population, the user penetration rate is less than 40%, and the number of home broadband users is less than 30,000.
- Bangladesh: About 8.5 million (5%) people in remote villages are not covered by 4G networks. The gap between urban and rural areas is obvious.
- Nepal: The 4G network coverage rate is less than 80%, and the user penetration rate is 50%. This strongly restricts the development of the digital economy and distance education in mountainous areas.
- Sri Lanka: More than 3 million people still do not have 4G coverage. In addition, the country's macroeconomic difficulties make more and more villagers unable to pay for broadband communication.
3. Potential content and best practices to be shared/discussed in this panel
- Thailand NBTC: USO2.0/3.0/4.0 funding to support digital inclusion, promote open access sites and shared optical fibers, enable MBB 5G to cover 98% of the population by 2027, and implement services such as remote education and smart agriculture. Video link
- Malaysia MCMC: The USO in the first phase of Jedenla project subsidized rural network 4G/fiber, promoted 96.9% population coverage, and improved experience from 25 Mbit/s to 35 Mbit/s.
- Cambodia TRC: Site openness and sharing legislation, USO funds subsidize rural network, accelerate 4G universal services, and improve user experience.
- Bangladesh BTRC: USOs provide subsidies for rural areas, issue mobile payment licenses, and encourage the popularization of mobile payment services such as bKash in rural areas. Video link
- Sri Lanka TRC: The government has released 2.3/2.6 new frequencies to support the continuous development of FWA services. USO funds have been provided to support the development of millions of home broadband users.
- Nepal NTA: Provide subsidies for the RTDF rural network to support MBB rural network coverage and user experience improvement.
