Broadband networks in the Middle East and North Africa

Just as the steam engine was the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution, broadband Internet is today seen as critical to the transition to knowledge-intensive economies across the world. As a general purpose technology, broadband Internet is considered as a fundamental driver of economic growth and social development, releasing the innovative potential and energy of previously disenfranchised members of the population. Many of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) now recognise that broadband Internet is crucial to their efforts to reduce poverty and create job opportunities, especially for their young populations and for women. The report re-emphasizes the important contribution that broadband Internet can make and assesses the status of existing infrastructure in at least 18 MENA countries. While there is significant potential across the region, however, the take-up of broadband Internet has been slow, and the price of broadband service is high in many countries. In large part, this stems from market structures that, too often, reflect the past when telecommunications were treated as a monopoly utility service.