Though it is not so popular in some quarters, many key communications supply problems, including availability of voice and data services of high quality to everyone, tend to be solved in ways that are not expected.
Younger observers might not know it, but global policy makers struggled for decades to figure out how to get plain old telephone service to billions of people who had never made a phone call. The same sorts of concerns have been raised more recently about access to the Internet.
In an astounding achievement, the global mobile industry managed to achieve, in about a decade, something nobody could figure out how to do, for much of the 20th century. In emerging markets, the inflection point was reached sometime early in the 2000s.
As it turns out, wireless services are solving both voice and Internet access problems. In other words, the “divide” between people with phone service, like the “divide” between people with Internet access, is in the process of being solved by mobile services and device suppliers.
But it also is important to note that none of the progress would have been possible without regulators supporting liberalized licensing, support for market entry and spectrum allocation, while investors had to supply the capital.
That is a noteworthy achievement.
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