The Need for Speed
For Those With a Slow Connection,
The Door to the Internet's Future Is Closed
For the past 10 years I've pooh-poohed the idea of a digital divide, but now I realize there is one and I'm on the wrong side of it.
The phrase itself is more than a decade old, and seems to have morphed in meaning as the years, and the world, have moved on. At first it had to do with whether people had computers; others talked more about whether those computers were in the home (one side of the divide), or somewhere like a school or public library (the other).
These remain real issues, but my skepticism was rooted in a sneaking suspicion that the digital divide was the construct of hand-wringing, well-meaning people living in the developed world who thought that if only everyone had a computer and an Internet connection, all would be right on the planet.
That could be true, but most people I know who don't have a computer don't have one either out of choice or because there are a lot of other things higher up on their shopping list, ranging from any form of transportation to a decent meal once a day. Besides, while everyone has been agonizing over the lack of computers in the poor parts of Africa, Asia and elsewhere, they've missed the real revolution: the cellphone. This has changed lives in much more useful ways than computers have. And it has scotched the idea that the digital divide is about technological literacy, since I've still not met anyone in any walk of life who has a cellphone and isn't a master of its primary functions.
Of course, the Internet has also grown hugely over the past 10 years and those who don't have access to it do have a disadvantage. But that isn't the divide I'm fretting about: If we just talk about towns, you'd be hard pressed to find one without public Internet access in or near it somewhere. This isn't a digital divide, it's more of a digital tail: Those at the top have the Internet with them wherever they are (like me, now, sitting in a car park in England's Peak District, hooked up via a 3G data card), while those at the tip of the tail have an Internet cafe across the plain where they can check their email once a month.
No, the real digital divide is appearing between those people who have a fast Internet connection and those who don't. Previously, the speed of a connection didn't matter too much; sure, it was a nuisance to have to watch a page load pixel by pixel on a slow dial-up connection, but given that most Internet access was for checking email or loading Web pages, most of which didn't feature much in the way of complicated graphics or animation, that didn't matter a great deal. In the end, everyone could access the same stuff, even if it took some people a little longer.
Now that is changing -- fast. In the past year or so we've seen a shift in what people do on the Internet. It's becoming less a passive, information-centered resource and more an interactive marketplace driven by multimedia content, where users are likely to upload and download much larger quantities of data. Think user-uploaded videos at YouTube.com; think podcasts, music files and TV shows from iTunes; think Internet telephony and video such as Skype (
www.skype.com). Think Web-based applications where the software you use to write, edit and share documents resides online, not on your computer. Few of these services are worth using if you don't have a fast connection.
A virtuous circle is being created by an explosion in cheap, fast Internet connections in part of the world, in turn feeding user demand, and user-generated content, for these kinds of services and activities. And it isn't just about broadband, by which I mean anything that doesn't involve dialing a telephone number with your modem -- and for most of us that means a cable modem or Digital Subscriber Line -- replacing dial-up. Even in some places where broadband exists, it's a poor relation of the broadband elsewhere. Hidebound by government regulations, expensive satellite links to the Internet or lucrative monopolies, a lot of developing countries in Africa and Asia provide broadband connections only in name, says Rahul Tongia, a systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S., who has studied this kind of thing. "I fully agree there is not one digital divide per se," he says. High among the divides, he says, is a decent connection -- or what he calls "meaningful broadband."
I know this only too well, because I live in Indonesia, where I pay more than $60 a month for a broadband connection that is little faster than dial-up. We could perhaps call it "meaningless broadband." Indeed, this was confirmed when I conducted a poll of my globally distributed advisory board. Respondents in places such as the U.S., Hong Kong and the United Kingdom reported downloading the 5 MB test file (my friend Jim's holiday snaps from Liberia) within 30 seconds, even on a 3G wireless connection. Those in places like Indonesia either refused to try, on the grounds they didn't want to waste their evening, or reported that it took between five and eight minutes. Two different worlds.
The implications are obvious: This divide -- between countries, regions or groups with fast, affordable Internet access and those without -- is limiting the latter's participation in this important next stage of the Internet's development as a commercial, social, political and educational medium. From teaching aids to movies, from online commerce to user-generated content, there is going to be one bunch of people able to do all this in a blink of an eye, and another bunch either unable to join at all or doing so at a pace more leisurely than paint drying.
Joseph Tzeng, managing director of Ohio-based venture capital investor Crystal Ventures, sees this divide occurring between "richer and poorer countries, between coastal cities and inland villages in mainland China, and between cities and countryside. The divide will only get worse," he says, as fast connections proliferate.
I don't have any pat solutions for this. There are lots of technologies that may help, and which I'll look into in future columns, but I suspect a real solution may have to involve governments, think tanks and deregulation. Let's just hope it doesn't take too long; the Internet is entering an interesting new phase and, trust me, it feels horrible not to be able to join in.
只有快速上网 芝麻才能开门
过去10年中，我对“数字鸿沟”的说法一直嗤之以鼻，但我现在认识到这一问题确实存在，而我不幸正身处鸿沟的下风口。
“数字鸿沟”这个词已经出现10多年了，随著时间的推移以及世事的演变，其含义似乎也在不断变化。它最初被用来形容人们有无电脑的差别，有些人则更愿意用这个词来描述人们究竟能在哪里接触到电脑──是在家中（数字鸿沟的一边），还是在学校或公共图书馆一类的地方（数字鸿沟的另一边）。这种差别确实存在，但我以前总是暗自怀疑，所谓数字鸿沟不过是发达世界的理想主义者主观臆想出来的东西，他们认为只要人人都有一部电脑，都能接入互联网，世界就和谐美好了。这或许不错，但我认识的那些没有电脑的人却大多并非买不起电脑，他们或是根本不想买，或是认为有比买电脑更重要的花钱之处，比如改善自己的出行条件，或者每隔一天出去美餐一顿。此外，虽然人们都对非洲、亚洲穷国缺少电脑的状况忧心忡忡，但他们却忽略了一个真正革命性的东西──手机。 手机对人们实际生活的改变比电脑要大得多。它动摇了所谓数字鸿沟就是指人们在科技素养方面所存在差别的观念，因为我从未遇到过一个拥有手机却不能熟练使用其基本功能的人。
当然，过去10年中互联网的规模已有了巨大增长，那些无法上网的人确实处于劣势。但我对这方面的“鸿沟”却并不担忧。如果仅就城镇而言，你要想找到一个无法就近上网的地方还真不容易了。这里与其说存在数字鸿沟，不如说存在一根数字尾巴。那些位于尾巴根上的人随时随地都能上网（比如说我，现在正坐在英格兰Peak District的一个停车场通过3G数字卡上网呢），而那些位于尾巴尖上的人也可很方便地找到一家网吧，至少每月上网查一查自己的电子邮件不成问题。
真正的数字鸿沟出现在能够快速上网和不能快速上网的人之间。网速快慢以往并不是个大问题；拨号上网时代缓慢的网页浏览速度确实使人心烦，但鉴于人们那时上网主要就是为了查电子邮件和浏览网页，而这些内容大多并不涉及复杂的图形和影像，因此网速快慢还不是特别紧要。说到底，人们上网能接触到的东西都是相同的，只不过有些人接触这些东西要多花些时间。
但这种局面正在迅速改变。过去1年左右，人们的上网目的有了巨大转变。网络的信息源色彩正在减弱，在多媒体时代它越来越具有互动平台的特点。人们现在通过网络上传或下载的数据量比以往大得多。看看网民们是如何通过YouTube.com上传自己的视频内容的，想想人们从iTunes获得的个性化广播、音乐文件和电视节目；看看Skype (
www.skype.com)等提供的互联网语音和可视电话服务。再想想那些基于互联网的应用软件，这些你用来写作、编辑和进行文件共享的软件存在于互联网上，而不是安装在你的电脑中。如果你不能快速上网，就谈不到享受上述服务。
借助廉价、快速上网条件的普及，世界的一部分地区已经形成了一种良性循环。优越的上网条件一方面可以满足人们更加丰富的需要，另一方面又可以让人们将更多东西发布到网上，并通过互联网提供更加多样的服务。这绝不仅仅是是否具备宽带上网条件那么简单。有些地方虽然具备宽带上网条件，但与其他地方相比就相形见绌了。美国卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)的系统科学家拉胡尔?通加(Rahul Tongia)说，受困于政府的严格监管、高昂的卫星上网成本以及有利可图的行业垄断，非洲和亚洲许多发展中国家的宽带上网只不过徒有其名。他说，本质上并不存在所谓的数字鸿沟，真正的差别是是否存在良好的上网条件，用他的话说就是是否具备“有意义的宽频”。
我对这点体会太深了，因为我居住在印度尼西亚，这里的宽带上网费是每月60多美元，但实际的上网速度比拨号上网快不了多少。我们或许可以称之为“无意义的宽频”。我对自己分布在全球的顾问们进行的一项调查证实了这一点。我要他们下载一个5兆的测试文件，美国、香港和英国等地的人回复说他们只用了不到30秒就完成下载了，有些人甚至是在3G无线上网环境下完成这一任务的。而在印尼等地的人要么拒绝做此尝试（理由是他们不想浪费整整一晚的时间），要么回复说他们用5到8分钟才完成了下载。真是天悬地隔的两个世界。
影响是显而易见的。横亘在不同国家、地区和人群间的这条鸿沟限制了那些无法廉价、快速上网的人参与互联网的下一步发展，而互联网正是在这一阶段将迅速发展成一个重要的商业、社交、政治和教育媒介。从远程教育到电影下载，从电子商务到个性化网络内容，有些人可以轻而易举地获得一切，而有些人要么只能作壁上观，要么只能鼓起百倍的耐心慢慢去网上淘了。
美国风险投资公司Crystal Ventures的董事总经理约瑟夫?曾(Joseph Tzeng)认为这条鸿沟出现在“富国和穷国之间、中国大陆的沿海城市和内陆农村之间以及城市和乡村之间。”他说，随著快速上网条件的日益普及，这一鸿沟只能变得更深。
我没有什么解决这一问题的好办法。有许多技术性手段可以帮助解决这个问题，我在以后的专栏文章中将会提及，但我猜想，只有政府、学术界齐心协力，借助放松管制才能解决这一问题。只是希望解决问题的时间不要拖得太长，互联网正在进入一个妙趣横生的发展新阶段，听我一句话，不能跻身其中的后果太可怕了。
Jeremy Wagstaff
