Humans are sociable beings and given an opportunity, they would start
communicate with their fellow beings. Though every zoological species has its
own language, humans have made up their own multiple languages and the ways to
express through them. Robinson Crusoe created his own language to communicate
with Friday at the lonely island.
History as well as folktales has numerous instances of pigeons that were fussed
over and trained to send messages across great distances. Similarly, messengers
traveled great distances to carry the messages of the royals. Scriptures were
memorized and spread literally through the word of the mouth.
Telegraph, Telephones, Radio, TV, mobile and Internet have been some of the
major innovations in the past two centuries. On one hand modern technology
brought progress, on the other it created further distances between the people
who wanted or needed to communicate.
However, the availability, accessibility and affordability of these have not
been uniform. About half of the human population on this planet is yet to have
the first telephonic conversation while only about one-tenth have actually used
the Internet. Situation is more acute in the developing countries due to poor
telecom infrastructure, low GDP per capita and high levels of illiteracy.
National priorities have become more complex such that the focus is on ICT
(Information & Communication Technology) access and not just on the
telephones. For example, India’s National Telcom Policy, 1994 (NTP 1994)
talked more about phones whereas the New Telecom Policy, 1999 (NTP 1999) expands
the scope to include affordable information access as well.
India’s telecom infrastructure is fifth largest in the world if one considers
the number of telephone line capacity installed. However, when we consider the
sheer size of one billinon plus population the penetration level is quite low.
When we include the low level of Internet subscriber base and the high cost of
access with respect to the purchasing power parity (PPP) as well as other
aspects, ITU places India at 117th
rank in its recently published figures for Digital Access
Index (DAI).
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