Increasing Broadband Internet Penetration

In the OIC Member Countries

first part of 2011, for a total of 99 countries. In 2010 alone, the number of man-made

shutdowns reached 111. Between July 2015 and June 2016, West (2016) counted 81

government-imposed disruptions, of which 36 affected the national broadband network and

22 impacted subnational mobile networks. Beyond government-initiated downtime, the

Internet is constantly affected by localized downtimes. According to the disruption tracking

platform Pingdon, at any hour period worldwide, the Internet is affected by approximately

16,000 outages. Man-made and technology disruptions have an economic impact. The

economic impact per day varies by the type of disruption, ranging, according to West (2016)

from $ 3,816,000 for a national app (such as Twitter or Google) to $ 14,968,000 for the

national Internet

So far, the cultural, social and economic risks to the OIC Member Countries related to achieving

high broadband penetration have been reviewed. This section should also address the risks

that exist for the OIC Member Countries if they do not achieve high broadband penetration

(this has been called the “opportunity cost”). As discussed in Chapter II, broadband has been

found to have an impact on economic development, competitiveness, and social inclusion. This

means that the OIC Member Countries need to foster the development of broadband while

acknowledging the social and cultural risks it entails and implementing the necessary

remedies to control them. First and foremost, the development of local content is an

imperative that would limit the potential negative effects of cultural uprooting.

This impact only looks at GDP, and excludes lost tax revenues, impact on worker productivity, barriers to business

expansion, and loss in investor or consumer confidence.