But the number of users in these countries is mushrooming: Users increased by 28 percent in 2002-2003, by 26 percent in 2003-2004 and by 30 percent in 2004-2005, according to the International Telecommunication Union. The connection rate jumped by 52 percent in Africa in 2004-2005 alone.

Increased Internet access in developing countries has provided a host of applications, such as e-education, e-health, e-business, e-agriculture, e-tourism and e-government. IT uses are as varied as monitoring food security in Africa, using geospatial mapping to identify food-insecure communities in Cambodia, providing informal education in Mexico, enhancing teacher training in Tanzania and tracking rises in disease rates after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Universal Internet access is the goal of all 192 member countries of the United Nations, which in 2006 unanimously proclaimed World Information Society Day, to be observed on May 17. The Day, which is informally celebrated in many countries as World Internet Day, should "help to raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other ICTs can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide." Appropriately, the date marks the anniversary of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865, which helped to open grand new frontiers to business.

At a meeting on February 28 between more than 100 Silicon Valley executives and officials from more than 30 countries, participants stressed the difficulties of knowing the exact needs of consumers in the developing world. Others mentioned problems such as limited broadband capacity and scarcity of locally produced content.

But various participants at the Silicon Valley meeting argued that lowering the cost of Internet access and computer equipment could help drive the same type of growth that mobile phones have experienced in developing countries. Privatization and a sound regulatory structure, they said, underlay the explosion of mobile phones in these markets, aided by innovative models such as prepaid cards for those without bank accounts or fixed addresses. This holds lessons for Internet access as well.

It is true that making available low-cost computers and affordable Internet depends on a complex chain of on-the-ground realities, of which technological innovation is only one component. Others include expanded domestic Internet connections, adequate domestic service providers, IT-educated users and content in local languages that meets local needs.