Discord at digital divide talks

Looks the folks who are meeting in Geneva to discuss the ever widening "Digital Divide". The main problem, as always is "over who should pay for technology projects in the developing world. " The answer is always rich, industrial countries, so I don't exactly see what the problem is.

Developing countries will be never be able to afford to build the infrastructure, let alone provide the hardware to get people online. It's no brainer. If you want to make it a reality, the wealthy, industrialized countries are going to have to dig deep.

A bigger problem, at least from what I see here in Samoa, is that government policy tends to be counterproductive towards to goal of getting people onto the Internet. Samoa has a national IT policy with a vision of having everyone in the country connected. However, SamoaTel, the goverment sbsidized telecommunications giant has a 5-year monopoly on internet connectivity, which removes competition from the marketplace and makes it difficult for many people to afford online service.