Mexico. The recent creation of CFE Telecommunications and Internet for All is a clear sign of the government's concern to guarantee the constitutional mandate to provide connectivity to the entire population, or in his words, the Internet in all towns.
It is unthinkable not to welcome a good intention in this field. What follows is to understand and design the entire chain of appropriation of digital content and services, to detonate an effective impact on society.
Full digital appropriation not only depends on one factor, coverage, but requires the alignment of a set of variables. The following are the main links in the chain of appropriation of digital goods and their diagnosis of access and development among Mexicans.
1. Connectivity: A sine qua non condition for accessing digital services is the deployment of telecommunications networks (fixed or mobile). In Mexico, according to the National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technologies in Households of INEGI (ENDUTIH, 2018), 92.2% of households have connectivity through fixed networks.
2. Devices and Equipment: In order to use telecommunications services, it is necessary to have access devices, such as smartphones and computers. Currently, nine out of ten mobile users have smartphones with internet access, while half of households do not have a computer. It lies there in the purchasing power of computer equipment, which should be directed a good proportion of the effort and budget for connectivity.
3. Digital Skills: In front of connectivity and equipment, knowledge is required for its use. According to endUTIH 2018, the reason why 13.9% of households that do not have a computer is because they do not know how to use it. As can be seen, it is a relatively smaller proportion, but which must also be influenced to achieve effective social use.
4. Transactional methods: According to the CNBV's 2019 Annual Financial Inclusion Outlook, there are only 34.6 credit cards per 100 inhabitants in Mexico. Again, to optimize the use, the muscle of the financial sector must be added to achieve the financial deepening required for transactional exploitation.
However, it is valid and very positive that the government wants to provide connectivity to households without telecommunications network coverage in Mexico.
However, it is not appropriate for the government to do everything directly. It is not an imperative necessity to create a State company of the proportions of CFE Telecommunications and Internet for All, but a surgical focus is required to bring connectivity to these disconnected populations and the generation of a comprehensive strategy to promote full inclusion in the rest of the links of the appropriation of digital services.
This governmental concern must be focused and seconded from the visions and efforts of industry, academia and society as a whole.
This is a case in which the sum of individual efforts will converge towards the common goal of ensuring full digital inclusion of Mexican society, we already have precedents of comprehensive strategies that we must not abandon, such as the National Digital Strategy (EDN).
With all these elements we can realistically aspire to a true State policy, not only of Government, that effectively promotes actions to have all the links of connectivity for all Mexicans.
Text written by Ernesto Piedras of The Competitive Intelligence Unit.
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