Broadband divides

According to a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), a person in a developed country is eight times more likely to be a broadband user than someone in a developing country. And the digital divide can be extreme. In the case of overall Internet use, more than half of the developed world’s population is now online, compared to only 15 percent in developing countries.

The “Information Economy Report 2009: Trends and Outlook in Turbulent Times” found that a person in a developed country is 200 times more likely to be a broadband Internet user than someone living in a least developed country, putting the latter at a major competitive disadvantage in business and trade. Australia, a country with 21 million inhabitants, has more broadband subscribers than the whole of Africa.

‘Dreams come true’

It was a massive hit on YouTube and now “I Dreamed a Dream,” has become the largest global CD pre-order in the history of Amazon.com. Susan Boyle’s album released yesterday from Sony Music Entertainment is “clearly capturing the hearts of our customers around the globe,” according to Craig Pape, senior manager of Music at Amazon.com.

Boyle became a reality show and Internet star after her April 11, 2009 appearance on the television show “Britain’s Got Talent,” where she sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables.” To check out Boyle’s new look and see how far she’s come this year, click to her official website at www.susanboylemusic.com.

Voice revenues to decline

Mobile voice service revenues are on a trajectory to reach their peak in 2010, after which they are likely to start declining, according to the latest forecasts from ABI Research.

“Mobile voice has had a meteoric rise since digital cellular networks such as GSM were deployed in 1992,” said Jake Saunders, ABI Research’s VP for Forecasting. “ABI Research forecasts annual mobile voice revenues to reach $580 billion in 2010. From 2011 on, rising subscriber saturation will increasingly erode mobile voice revenues, not just in developed markets but also in a number of emerging markets. By 2014, mobile voice revenues will have contracted by 9.6 percent.”

While mobile operators have received a substantial boost from value-added services such as messaging and Mobile Internet, competition is squeezing margins for a variety of services and carriers. Total mobile data services should generate $169 million in 2009 and will grow at a CAGR of 9 percent until 2014. By the end of 2009 the declines in annual average revenue per user (ARPU) will have been felt most severely in Asia-Pacific (-8.7 percent to $105) and Africa (-7.8 percent to $134). ARPU in 2009 in North America will have contracted, but only by -0.6 percent to $526. Mobile Internet revenue from the use of smartphones, netbooks, etc. has helped to prop up overall service revenue for the region.

Electronics burden landfills

The volume of obsolete electronics equipment entering the world’s landfills continues to rise and is expected to reach 73 million metric tons by 2010, placing a significant burden on solid waste management systems. While recycling is widely viewed as the best way to handle broken or obsolete electronics equipment, the cost of that recycling is underestimated.

A survey of US consumers by Pike Research found that the average consumer thought that the cost of collecting, hauling, demanufacturing and recycling a single piece of used electronics equipment was $12, where the true cost is more than $20. It is quite unclear however who should be responsible for covering the cost of that recycling. Just 14 percent of those surveyed felt that the cost of electronics recycling should be borne by consumers at the points of purchase or recycling.