ICT's societal and economic impact

ICT is leveraged for economic, societal and interpersonal transactions and

interactions. ICT has drastically changed how people work, communicate, learn and
live. Moreover, ICT continues to revolutionize all parts of the human experience as
first computers and now robots do many of the tasks once handled by humans. For
example, computers once answered phones and directed calls to the appropriate
individuals to respond; now robots not only can answer the calls, but they can often
more quickly and efficiently handle callers' requests for services.

ICT's importance to economic development and business growth has been so

monumental, in fact, that it's credited with ushering in what many have labeled the
Fourth Industrial Revolution.

ICT also underpins broad shifts in society, as individuals en masse are moving from
personal, face-to-face interactions to ones in the digital space. This new era is
frequently termed the Digital Age.

For all its revolutionary aspects, though, ICT capabilities aren't evenly distributed.
Simply put, richer countries and richer individuals enjoy more access and thus have a
greater ability to seize on the advantages and opportunities powered by ICT.

Consider, for example, some findings from the World Bank. In 2016, it stated that
more than 75% of people worldwide have access to a cellphone. However, internet
access through either mobile or fixed Broadband remains prohibitively expensive in
many countries due to a lack of ICT infrastructure. Furthermore, the World Bank
estimated that out of the global population of 7.4 billion people, more than 4 billion
don't have access to the internet. Additionally, it estimated that only 1.1 billion people
have access to high-speed internet.

In the United States and elsewhere, this discrepancy in access to ICT has created the
so-called digital divide.
The World Bank, numerous governmental authorities and non-government
organizations (NGOs) advocate policies and programs that aim to bridge the digital
divide by providing greater access to ICT among those individuals and populations
struggling to afford it.

These various institutions assert that those without ICT capabilities are left out of the
multiple opportunities and benefits that ICT creates and will therefore fall further
behind in socio-economic terms.

The United Nations considers one of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to
"significantly increase access to information and communications technology and
strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in least developed
countries by 2020."

Economic advantages are found both within the ICT market as well as in the larger
areas of business and society as a whole.

Within the ICT market, the advancement of ICT capabilities has made the
development and delivery of various technologies cheaper for ICT vendors and their
customers while also providing new market opportunities. For instance, telephone
companies that once had to build and maintain miles of telephone lines have shifted to
more advanced networking materials and can provide telephone, television and
internet services; consumers now enjoy more choices in delivery and price points as a
result.

The significance of ICT in enterprises

For businesses, advances within ICT have brought a slew of cost savings,
opportunities and conveniences. They range from highly automated businesses
processes that have cut costs, to the big data revolution where organizations are
turning the vast trove of data generated by ICT into insights that drive new products
and services, to ICT-enabled transactions such as internet shopping
and telemedicine and social media that give customers more choices in how they
shop, communicate and interact.

But ICT has also created problems and challenges to organizations and individuals
alike -- as well as to society as a whole. The digitization of data, the expanding use of
high-speed internet and the growing global network together have led to new levels of
crime, where so-called bad actors can hatch electronically enabled schemes or
illegally gain access to systems to steal money, intellectual property or private
information or to disrupt systems that control critical infrastructure. ICT has also
brought automation and robots that displace workers who are unable to transfer their
skills to new positions. And ICT has allowed more and more people to limit their
interactions with others, creating what some people fear is a population that could lose
some of what makes it human
teledensity.

A standard definition of teledensity refers to the number of telephones

available per hundred inhabitants of a particular territory. Today, teledensity
is the basic measure of telecom development just like GDP per capita which
shows the economic strength of a country. It also shows the strength of
telecom infrastructure.

The next question for researchers is obvious— how teledensity is to be

improved. Some opine that increased investment in telecommunication
infrastructure will boost the teledensity while others argue that investment in
telecom infrastructure alone without improving other socio-economic
conditions will not increase the teledensity. However, it is now considered
view that telecom is a basic sector for the development.

Sound infrastructure in telecom development is viewed as a major pre-

requisite for the economic integration in this globalized world. World Bank in
its report in 1990 stated that the establishment of a modern, reliable and
rapidly expanding telecommunications infrastructure contributes
considerably to the promotion of a variety of economic expansion activities.

Historically, there exists a wide gap between the teledensity of developing and
developed countries. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported
in 2003 that teledensity in the least developed countries is about 0.29 per cent
which means that one telephone line for 300 people. In some countries
teledensity surpasses 100 per cent which means that some people subscribe to
more than one telephone line.

In the decade of 1990s, massive research was conducted in telecom sector and
many studies showed positive relationship between telecom growth and
economic development. One study showed that teledensity investment
projects brought average financial rates of returns of 18 per cent and economic
returns ranging from 20-50 per cent.

Some of the studies found that growth in teledensity brought a variety of social
benefits in addition to economic benefits in developing countries. Social
benefits were identified in health, social services delivery, and education and
development projects.

These benefits made the developing countries realize to invest more in telecom
development. Since, the developing countries have little sources to invest in
the infrastructure, the only option was private investment. Consequently, a
wave of telecom liberalization has been observed across the developing world
since early 1990s which brought telecom tariffs down and expanded the
services rapidly.

In terms of telecommunication penetration, Asian economies are taking lead

and expanding rapidly. Transfer of latest technology is no more a hurdle for
the growth of telecom as telecom giants of the world are taking over the sector
in developing countries in collaboration with local investors or some time
having solo flights.

Pakistan opened its basic telephony market for private investors in 2003 and
introduced more competition in cellular market by awarding two more
licenses at attractive prices to foreign based companies. Resultantly, a rapid
growth in penetration in terms of teledensity has been observed in Pakistan in
a few months.

Every 14th Pakistani possesses either cell phone, WLL or fix line phone across
the country. Five years back every 33rd Pakistani had this facility. Teledensity
has improved manifolds in the last few years. The total teledensity has crossed
13.6 per cent which is 3.5 percentage point higher than India who opened its
market much earlier than Pakistan. Two new companies have crossed the
million mark in their subscription.

In the new telecom policy, new licensees are required to cover 70 per cent of
tehsil headquarters all across Pakistan in two years and it is great challenge for
Pakistan Telecom Authority to ensure the rollout obligations by cellular
mobile operators.

Despite the fact that Pakistan has observed a fast growth in Teledensity, rural
urban disparity is still wide which needs to be addressed. Currently, fixedline
rural teledensity is just 1.3 per cent as compared to 7.9 per cent in urban
Pakistan. Similarly, there also exists the digital divide among four provinces.

Balochistan is at the lowest ebb where total fixed line teledensity is just 1.9 per
cent while it is 2.7 per cent in NWFP and 4.1 per cent in Sindh province. In
cellular, Balochistan is again lagging behind other provinces. Cellular
teledensity in Balochitsan is just 3.4 per cent while in Sindh it is 11 per cent.
Cellular teledensity in Punjab and NWFP is 8.3 and 5.4 per cent respectively.
The Ubran-rural disparity needs to be removed.
The boost in teledensity has helped to achieve over eight per cent economic
growth. It is estimated that a 10 per cent rise in the teledensity can increase
the GDP growth from 0.2 to 0.6 per cent.