In addition to physical infrastructure, certain levels of types of service (e.g. public, shared or private) and user communications capabilities are required to progress ICT usage. In fact, as the figure below shows, there is a relation in terms of available access and service use.
Figure: Steps in developing communications capability
Source: ITU-infoDev ICT Regulation Toolkit – UA Module
A routine user typically uses a service as a matter of course whenever it is valuable in daily life and not just in exceptional circumstances or emergencies. To become routine users, most people need the convenience of private service that will only be acquired if the service is accessible and affordable.
The progression from infrastructure coverage to routine use is applicable to the Internet, as well as to telephony. However, there is an important difference between the telephony and Internet staircases—no special skill or education is needed to use phones, while using the Internet effectively needs certain levels of literacy and practice as well as other skills (e.g., use of software, knowledge of foreign language, etc.).
Broadly speaking, most people need or want affordable telephone service, however, the same is not always true for the Internet. Even in developed countries, sizable proportions of the population do not want to use the Internet for a variety of reasons. The skills needed to use the Internet seem to come much more easily to younger people, and older people sometimes lack both interest and skills. However, more importantly, in developing countries, with lower educational levels and less relevant content, there are more barriers for people to use the Internet, even where it is accessible and affordable. Universal access (UA) programmes for the Internet are therefore often far behind those for telephony.
Many countries do want goals for universal access and service (UAS) for both telephony and Internet (and even for broadband Internet), recognizing the potential of enhanced and ubiquitous ICT services for social and economic development. Tracking progress across all of these goals becomes increasingly complex. A possible new approach for tracking progress that focuses on people’s capabilities to use the technologies, rather than on the underlying infrastructure, is described in the Practice Note
Communications capability profiles.