son, nations including Japan and international organizations are making every effort to overcome this international challenge.

## (2) Current status of the international digital divide

A variety of efforts are being made to bridge the international digital divide, but there is still a considerable disparity between high-income nations and in low-income nations in terms of the penetration rates of ICT services. Under these circumstances, policies aimed at elimination of the digital divide take a different form in developing countries than in developed countries, and approaches to the issue are diversifying. With this in mind, we will examine the issue of the international digital divide from multiple viewpoints.

### A. Digital divide by region and income level

Grouping nations according to income level $ ^{24} $ , and looking at the change in the Internet-using population relative to total population over time, we find that in mid-income and lower-income countries, a growing user population signifies that Internet-using population is growing relative to the total population. A major disparity remains, however, with high-income nations that make up only 15.5% of the world's population accounting for 59.7% of the Internet-using population.

### B. Transformation of ICT infrastructure environments in other countries

The international digital divide is often explained in terms of the income levels and economic scale of the countries and regions in question. For example, there remains a huge gap between the penetration rates of fixed phone lines, cellular phones and the Internet in high-income and low-income nations.

### C. Change in ICT infrastructure penetration

The change in penetration rates over the last 10 years points to a shift of telephone networks toward mobile and Internet toward broadband, with growth particularly dramatic in developing countries, indicating the speed with which ICT infrastructure is developing in these countries. Sophistication and diversification of the ICT infrastructure are seen as contributing to differing methods and approaches to bridging the digital divide in developed and developing nations.

Figure 2-2-2-7 shows the change in penetration rates of fixed phone lines and mobile phones (number of subscriptions divided by total population). Fixed phone lines, one of the first elements of ICT infrastructure to develop, have reached a high level of penetration, particularly in developed countries, over several decades. It is primarily in high-income nations that fixed-line phones have reached penetration rates of 40% or more since 2000. The mobile phone penetration rate, on the other hand, has skyrocketed across the board since around 2005, and it is notable that growth has been dramatic in developing countries as well where the fixed-line phone penetration rate remains low.

Figure 2-2-2-8 shows the penetration rates of fixed phone lines and mobile phones at five-year intervals since 1985, with each nation's data averaged and classified according to income level. The dominant pattern in developed countries is for development and penetration of the fixed-line phone network to be followed by development and penetration of the mobile phone network, whereas in developing countries the tendency is for mobile phone network development and penetration to progress rapidly even while the fixed-line phone development and penetration rate remains low. This trend

Figure 2-2-2-7 Penetration rates of fixed phone lines and mobile phones

(Source) Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications "Survey on Elimination of the International Digital Divide" (2011) (Prepared on the basis of ITU "World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2010 (15th Edition)")