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 Compounding the lack of Internet access is lack of reliable electric power, especially in rural areas, and, in many countries, the high cost of Internet access. A quarter of the world’s people lack access to electricity: 77 percent in Africa; 33 percent in Asia; 17 percent in Latin America. Moreover, because political mandates require power grids to supply service but provide insufficient funding or create an inability to collect revenues, electric utilities are unable to maintain the grids well or meet rapidly expanding demand. The result is frequent brownouts, voltage surges that can damage digital equipment, and often only a few hours of power per day. These conditions do not encourage use of computers unless they have battery or generator backup and voltage regulating equipment, significantly adding to the cost of a PC. An equally strong deterrent is the cost of Internet access in many countries. Such costs are highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where broadband access prices are as much as ten times that of Europe, quite high in East Asia, and lower but perhaps four times the European price in South Asia. Such costs make it almost prohibitive for most households, small businesses, and schools (unless heavily subsidized by government) to pay for Internet access, and especially to pay for broadband access, so that cyber cafes and other shared-access points (most of which do not provide true broadband access) become the Internet access option of choice.

Some implications for education. The bottom line is that widely available broadband Internet access does not yet exist in developing countries, and does not exist at all in most rural areas, where over half of the population lives and a significant proportion of schools are located. The supporting electric power infrastructure is also problematic, especially in Africa and South Asia. In many countries, security concerns would require that computers in schools be kept under lock and key when not in use as they are valuable, easily stolen, and can provide significant revenue to people who are desperate. The widely touted vision of providing an inexpensive laptop for every child in such countries is just that, a vision only now coming to grips with realities. However, the situation could change significantly in the next five years, as explained in the following section.

PCs adapted to and priced for developing countries are beginning to emerge. Intel is rolling out in India a $400 “kiosk” PC that is dust-proof and comes with