Digital Divide Bandwidth Distribution

Question: Discuss about broadband divide in the different areas? Answer: Introduction: The following article is about broadband divide in the different areas and gives the brief of terms involved to build understanding among people. There are some topics where would be discussion about the gap between service providers and consumers (Charp.2001). Digital divide can be defined as the gap between regions of specific area geographically regarding access to internet services. The discussion is about the obstacles that are occurring in developing areas accessing internet. It will give clear glance of problems with these areas relating to technical and social aspects. Important Terms: There are some terms that should be understood before going through the barriers of digital divide. The terms are discussed here at their description form so that a clear picture could be painted in mind about them. IEEE Standards: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association is an organization that develops standards in range of industries, power, energy, information technology, telecommunication and many other fields (IEEE Standard Association 2015). Here in our discussion IEEE has developed standard for the bandwidth provided to different area in particular region. That helps one to identify the range of provided bandwidth in his/her area. Upload Speed: Upload speed is the rate of data transferred from users computer to the internet. Speed rate is defined as the downlink and uplink speed where downlink is from user to network and uplink is network to user. Upload speed is generally slower than downloading speed. Uploading process is similar to select data from user and transfer it to network. Upload speed does not depend on internet speed. Ideally upload and download speeds are similar but most of the users want to download information. Mbps: It is the unit of measurement which is used to measure download speed and upload speed over internet. Mega bit per seconds is the rate of transferring thousand bits per second. It can also be stated as thousand Kilo bit per second. Technical Barriers to Bridge Digital Divide: There are numbers of obstacles while bridging digital divide like technology accessibility, accessibility of devices and literacy. The reason behind lacking in technical aspect of using internet services is infrastructure provided in rural areas. The wireless services are not provided in these areas and wired network is difficult to maintain. Broadband service needs additional requirements to implement infrastructure, extra cost to apply equipment. There is one problem with knowledge of high embedded device implementation because most of the people do not know to operate it (Benjamin.M 2001). It is not possible to maintain and operate devices like smartphones and laptops etc. The cost of applying infrastructure across village is much higher and small amount of bandwidth is consumed. The monthly cost of adopting facilities is not possible to bear by everyone. The reason of different areas having digital divide is originated from the geographical position of proposed area to be affecte d. Awareness of available services provided among people. In African rural areas the grid power facilities are restricted in schools, hospitals and community centers. Satellite connectivity is not properly maintained in these areas so that delay in services and efficient throughput could not be achieved. Round trip time from village to network is increased because of the geographical factors. Social Barriers to Bridge Digital Divide: As far as social barriers are concerned there is the most important point to be notices here is literacy in rural areas. People do not know the use of service then how could it be used. Only 10 percent of African people are using internet from their home. It is happened because these services are provided in centralized areas. Population also plays major role in digital divide because in rural areas total bandwidth provided is less so it would lead to decrease the available bandwidth per person (Koss. 2001). Broadband connections are not taken by people therefore centralized resources are utilized in access amount. Social barriers are also part of environmental issues inn families and school environment that they are pursuing the idea of accessing the proposed services or not. Conclusion: The article is about bandwidth distribution in rural areas of developing countries like Africa. There are many areas where digital divide affects the use of internet. Topics discussed above have given the brief idea of terms relating technical and their implementation. Some of the issues are originated form educational background and infrastructure provided to people. It would be helpful to understand basic definition of digital divide and obstacles of bridging the gap. The article is the short version of topic given and central idea behind it. References: Charp (2001) The Journal (Technology horizons in education) Bridging the digital divide Vol.28, No 10 Viewed on 27 May , 2015. Koss (2001) Journals of international affairs Children falling into the digital divide Vol.55, No.1Viewed on 27 May ,2015. Benjamin.M (2001) The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis Or Creating a Myth? MIT press. IEEE Standard Association (2015) viewed on May 27, 2015 at https://standards.ieee.org.