ICT infrastructure: it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 30 January 2008 16:10

IT Industry - Market

In addition to finding that even the world's best connected countries are not exploiting communications technologies to their fullest potential, the researchers claim that, "in many cases policy and regulatory activity designed to promote connectivity is not having the impact intended."

The Connectivity Scorecard aims to measure the extent to which governments, businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies - the copper wires, fibre-optic lines, mobile phones and PCs that underpin today's information economy - to enhance social and economic prosperity. For each component of the Scorecard, countries are benchmarked against the best in class in their tier; thus if a country was best in all dimensions, it would score a maximum of 10.0.

Ilkka Lakaniemi, head of global political dialogues and initiatives at Nokia Siemens Networks, said: "This study is a call to arms for government and businesses. In a period of great economic uncertainty there are great benefits to be gained from the effective use of communications infrastructure. And as we move toward the vision of five billion people connected by 2015, policy makers and business leaders must simultaneously encourage the deployment of infrastructure and invest in the complementary assets – people – that will enable this infrastructure to be used to its maximum potential."

However the researchers claim to have identified a degree of complacency among businesses: users appear to be relatively satisfied with the services available, apparently not realising that the potential benefits to be gained from more creative use of available services.