The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s telecommunication/ICT Report 2010 has pointed out the need for more local content in local languages on the Internet.
“The web is still largely dominated by the English language, even though only around 15 per cent of the world’s population understands it. On the other hand, the proportion of English-speaking Internet users is declining, suggesting that non-English speakers are increasingly growing online. Another indication for the diversification of content on the Internet is the growing number of websites that are registered under country domain names. Some of the highest 2005-09 growth rates in terms of newly-registered domain names were found in India (.in), Russia (.ru) and China (.cn),” the report said.
The report, a joint effort by the ITU, Unesco and the WHO, was released at the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) 2010, in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
The report provides a mid-term review of the progress made in creating a global information society by 2015, a commitment that governments agreed upon at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which took place in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.
“The number of Internet users has more than doubled since 2003, when WSIS first met, and today more than 25 per cent of the world’s population is using the Internet,” Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, director (telecommunication development ) of ITU, told mediapersons here today.
The importance of bringing people online is widely recognised, but more efforts are needed to increase the number of Internet users. While today 75 per cent of all households have a television, only 25 per cent have Internet access. In the developing countries, home Internet penetration is as low as 12 per cent, he added.
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Highlighting the importance for setting clear policy targets and monitoring progress, the report proposes a list of 50 concrete indicators to monitor the targets over the next five years, until 2015.
”While major achievements have been made over the last five years, substantial efforts are required in developing countries to achieve the goals and targets by 2015. The report made three recommendations on the polices and measures needed to achieve the targets, and these include ensuring that half the world population has access to broadband by 2015, building an ICT-literate society globally and developing online content and applications,” Morshid said.