Committed to connecting the world

Workshop on Beyond Universality: The Meaningful Connectivity Imperative

Time and place: Monday, 8 May 2023 from 11:00 to 12:30 hours, Geneva (Room C, ITU)

This workshop took place in conjunction with ITU-D Study Group 1 Rapporteur Group Question (RGQ) meetings. It was open to non ITU-D Members and the public at large. It directly addressed the mandate of ITU-D Study Group 1 namely "Enabling environment for meaningful connectivity” from the measurement angle. Meaningful connectivity is a level of connectivity that allows users to have a safe, satisfying, enriching and productive online experience at an affordable cost.
One third of the world’s population remains offline. But connecting everyone will not be enough. Many among the online population are not “meaningfully connected” because of connectivity that is too slow, or unreliable, or costly, or because they lack the digital skills needed for connectivity to get the most out of the Internet. In addition to the dual policy challenge of achieving universal and meaningful connectivity, countries face a more immediate measurement challenge when it comes to several aspects of meaningful connectivity.
The workshop highlighted the importance of adequately measuring the enablers of universal and meaningful connectivity and showcase promising approaches. It was facilitated by ITU-D ICT Statistics

Return to the main ITU-D Study Group 1 page

[11h00 – 11h10] Setting the Scene: Universal and Meaningful Connectivity: a policy and measurement challenge

Speaker:

Mr Thierry Geiger, Head of ICT Statistics and Data Analytics Division, BDT, ITU [Biography] [Presentation]

[11h10 – 11h20] Measuring connectivity from private companies perspective

Digital sector companies play a big role in ensuring digital technologies help to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development by enabling universal access, helping develop digital skills, ensuring trustworthy and safe use, and working towards inclusive innovation. Our Digital Inclusion Benchmark shows that companies still have a long way to go to contribute comprehensively on all four areas.
Speaker:
Ms Lourdes Montenegro, Director of Research and DigitisationWorld Benchmarking Alliance [Biography] [Presentation]

[11h30 – 11h40] Insights on new networks and use cases: measure first, deploy later

Network technologies are evolving with a promise to increase connectivity options. Demand for both capacity and velocity increase because of the use cases. Measurements that do not put technical data into socio-economic context might lead policy makers to over or under-expectations. Measurements should adapt to new networking technologies and provide meaningful information that would open the path for meaningful connectivity.
Speaker:
Mr Gökhan Tok, Senior Policy Manager, Access Partnership [Biography] [Presentation]

[11h40 – 11h50] User-centric and end-to-end approaches to measure Meaningful Connectivity

Meaningful connectivity turns the spotlight on those who must benefit from it - we must look to the actual experience of real mobile network users, rather than projected assumptions based on off-peak throughput speeds or server-based tests. When we speak about being meaningfully connected we want to have successfully measured that users have been connected from end-to-end, from the device they are on to the content they want to reach.
Speaker:
Ms Ilaria Bencivenga, Policy Manager, Government and External Affairs, Opensignal [Biography] [Presentation]

[12h00 – 12h10] Country case study: insights from household surveys

Brazil's progress towards Internet universality has been uneven, with poor people and rural areas still lagging behind in terms of meaningful connectivity. This presentation offers some insights on the matter with data from the national ICT Households survey
Speaker:
Mr Fabio Storino, Household Survey Coordinator, CETIC, Brazil [Biography] [Presentation]

[12h10 – 12h30] Panel discussion and Q&A

with speakers and ITU-D SG1 Coordinators for Statistics Mr Sangwon Ko (vice-Chair, Rep. of Korea) [Biography] and Mr Mehmet Alper Tekin (vice-Chair, Türkiye) [Biography]