Digital divide is something ______. [br] [originaltext] A great deal of att

A great deal of attention is being paid to digital divide -- the division of the world into the info rich and the info poor. That divide does exist today. I lectured about this looming danger 20 years ago. What was less visible then are now the new, positive forces that work against the digital divide. There are reasons to be optimistic.
     There are technological reasons to hope the digital divide will narrow. As the Internet becomes more commercialized, it is in the interest of business to universalize access -- after all, the more people on-line, the more potential customers there are. More and more governments, afraid of falling behind ,want to spread Internet access. Within the next decade or two, one to two billion people on the planet will be netted together. So the digital divide will narrow rather than widen in the years ahead. And that is very good news because Internet may well be the most powerful tool for combating world poverty.
     Of course, the use of the Internet isn’t the only way to defeat poverty nor the only tool we have. But it has enormous potential.
     To take advantage of this tool, some poor countries should get over their prejudices against foreign investment. Take American history for example. When the United States first built its basic structures, it didn’t have the capital to do so. Many basic facilities like road, harbors, highways, ports, etc. were built with foreign investment. The English, the Germans, the Dutch and the French all invested and financed them. Now Americans own them all. The same would be true in any where for that matter. The more foreign capital you have to build your basic facilities, an electronic basic structure in particular the better off you’ re going to be. So it’s wise to build the energy and telecom facilities thus to take full advantages of the Internet.