With regard to countries in regions like the Mideast, for instance, I am not so sanguine. I fear that years of hatred and mistrust will lead to regional war. For those of us who are photojournalists, in print or broadcast, there have emerged some compelling concerns. Whether you live in Harrisburg or Hanoi, the World Wide Web and broadband is coming to your hometown. The Digital Journalist is being read as avidly in Jakarta as it is in Chicago.
People hunger for faster connections.
The problem is, infrastructure and governments are getting in the way. In Vietnam, there is an automatic timer that disconnects the user from the Internet after 15 minutes. In Thailand, rival branches of the government are squabbling over who controls the Web. One branch wants to limit broadband access to corporations who will pay exorbitant rates for downloads. While the other is determined to make it available to millions of ordinary citizens.