1999
There is an urgent need to find the resources to fund the global communications revolution-to ensure that it is truly global. One proposal is a "bit tax" - a very small tax on the amount of data sent through the Internet. The costs for users would be negligible; sending 100 emails a day, each containing a 10-kilobyte document (a very long one), would raise a tax of just 1 cent. Yet with email booming worldwide, the total would be substantial. In Belgium in 1998, such a tax would have yielded $10 billion. Globally in 1996, it would have yielded$70 billion - more than total official development assistance that year.
How quickly are different countries preparing for global communications? Many factors are involved, and the race to join the information society ahs set off at a fast pace. It will determine many of the winners and losers in the globalized world.
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