# 6G to Take the Digital Divide by Storm: Key Technologies and Trends to Bridge the Gap
## 2 The Evolution of the Digital Divide  
The origin of the digital divide dates back to the mid-nineties when, in the U.S., through the publication of some reports, the differences between people with access to the Internet (\"haves\") and those without (\"have-nots\") began to be analyzed. The phenomenon of the digital divide has evolved over time, passing from the _first-level_, related to the problems of access and connectivity, to the _second-level_, consisting in the lack of the necessary skills to properly exploit ICT, and finally to the _third-level_, concerning the differences in the outcomes and consequences obtained by using the Internet [10].  
According to this, we classify the different types of digital divide into two major categories: the _service-delivery divide_ and the _service-fruition divide_. The former concerns the digital exclusion caused by the absence of network infrastructures necessary for Internet access and digital services delivery; the latter can be considered related to a person-specific divide, since an insufficient level of digital literacy or a set of physical inabilities could prevent people from enjoying the benefits deriving from the fruition of digital services.  
The existence of these conditions not only affects the origin and the past of the digital divide phenomenon, but also concerns the current time. As a matter of fact, the state of health emergency we are still experiencing has exacerbated the digital gap. In the enterprise context, the resilience of companies has been enabled only for those that invested in technological innovation. This has represented a lifeline for the operational continuity of the businesses that had the readiness to carry out the _digital metamorphosis_ path, necessary for survival in the period of COVID-19. Similarly, receiving the provision of numerous services in telematic and innovative modalities has proved to be straightforward only for the part of the population inclined to use ICT; all the others encountered not a few difficulties in adapting to the new set-up imposed by the measures implemented to limit the pandemic. Even in light of the reports cited in Section 1, we can state that the digital exclusion corresponds to exclusion from access to services. Indeed, going through the pandemic caused by COVID-19, we have realized how important technology is as a means of keeping people in contact with the outside world by digitally receiving different types of services. This is the reason why we define a service-based classification to group the causes of the digital divide.  
Regarding the future evolution of the digital gap phenomenon, _normalization_ and _stratification_ are the two contradictory predictions that have been defined in the literature [11]. According to the first, over time the differences that cause the gap will gradually disappear until they reach saturation; it relies on the belief that government institutions will succeed in promoting and facilitating Internet access in the long run. Conversely, the second promotes the idea that the digital divide will unavoidably grow, owing to a continuing  
Figure 1: Some numbers on the Digital Divide.  
tightening of disparities within societies. This perspective appears to be more realistic, since some opinions exist according to which the evolution of mobile wireless networks could worsen the digital divide. For example, the very fact that, in this first phase of release, the 5G standard has been unevenly distributed in different countries of the world, led to the establishment of a further gap between areas that receive state-of-the-art network coverage and those that don't. Again in [11], it is stated that _connectivity does not end the digital divide_, _skills do_ to emphasize that, anyway, increasing network coverage alone may not suffice to bridge the digital divide, instead, technology ought to be exploited to bring people closer to the digital world.  
The described evolution path is represented in Figure 2.