Monitoring the WSIS targets

WTDR 2010: Monitoring the WSIS targetsTable 1.2: Rural population covered by a mobile cellular signal, 2008Overall mobilecellularcoverage (%)Rural populationcovered (%)Rural populationcovered(millions)Ruralpopulationnot covered(millions)Africa 69 52 253 230Americas 93 73 136 50Arab States 94 86 115 18Asia and the Pacific 85 76 1 720 533CIS 94 83 83 17Europe 99 98 159 3WORLD 86 74 2 466 852Note: The rural population covered by a mobile cellular signal is calculated by the following formula:Proportion of rural population covered by a mobile cellular signal=(Proportion of total population covered by a mobile cellular signal x Total population) — Urban populationRural populationSource: ITU.Chart 1.1: Rural population covered by a mobile signal, .2000-2008, by region%10090807060504030201002000 2002 2004 2006 2008Source: ITU.EuropeArab StatesCISAsia andthe PacificWORLDAmericasAfricatrack this indicator. The European Union collecteddata on households’ share of main telephone linesfor a number of years, but discontinued the seriesas far back as 2006. It has never collected data onrural household access to telephones.The latest available household survey data suggestthat in most countries there are more ruralhouseholds with mobile phones than fixed lines.The exceptions are Canada, Kyrgyzstan and Bosniaand Herzegovina, where more householdshave a fixed telephone than a mobile phone(Charts 1.2 and 1.3). One explanation is that fixedtelephone calls in these countries are relativelycheap or even free, as is the case in Canada, sopeople have a strong incentive to keep theirlandline. In several countries from the Americasregion, including Paraguay, El Salvador, Chile,Guatemala, and Nicaragua, household access isdominated by mobile phones, and less than fiveper cent of households have a fixed telephone.The mobile phone is also very dominant in a number of low-income developing countries in Africa, includingBurkina Faso, Uganda and Cameroon, and in Asia and the Pacific, confirming that mobile cellular technology isplaying a crucial role in expanding communication networks (Box 1.1).Overall, the proportion of rural households that have a mobile telephone ranges from as low as four per cent in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo to 95 per cent in Japan (Chart 1.2). Existing data, which are available for almost40 countries at very different stages of development and across all regions, show that while low-income developingcountries tend to have relatively few households with a mobile telephone, many developing countries, including Armenia,Egypt, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Ukraine and the Philippines have reached penetration levels above50 per cent. Fixed telephone penetration, on the other hand, remains very limited in most rural households, with14