“The Portable Internet” is the sixth in the series of “ITU Internet Reports”, originally launched in 1997. It has been prepared to coincide with ITU TELECOM Asia 2004, Exhibition and Forum, to be held in Busan (Republic of Korea) from 7 to 11 September 2004. This new report examines the emergence of high-speed wireless Internet access together with the proliferation of portable devices. In so doing, it explores the market potential and future impact of the new set of technologies underlying the “portable Internet”.

A number of economic and regional groupings are used in the report. Economic groupings are based on gross national income (GNI) per capita classifications used by The World Bank.

One thing that just about every commercial firm fears is that another company may enter its market, using a new technology or technique to provide a superior product or service at a lower price. Telecommunications have traditionally been characterized by long network planning cycles and high fixed investment costs. This makes the industry particularly vulnerable to disruptive or “subversive” technologies. Unlike the slow process of improving on a particular product or service through incremental change, disruptive technologies undermine the fundamental economics of product development and threaten to tear up the page and start again. The “portable Internet”, the subject of this book, offers just such a possibility.

In the past century, the term “wired” has taken on the meaning of feverishly excited. However, much of the recent feverish excitement over Internet access has centred on “wireless” technologies. Existing and evolving wireless technologies and standards are expanding the places where we can have access to the Internet and other information networks..

From a policy and regulatory perspective the provision of portable Internet services straddles a wide and diverse range of issues, reflecting the converged nature of its services and technologies. Important areas of policy and regulatory concern include spectrum management, licensing, interconnection, addressing and numbering as well as content and consumer protection. This chapter looks at some of these key aspects.

Nothing has had as dramatic and rapid impact on our generation as the Internet and the mobile phone. They have dramatically influenced the telecommunications landscape and in some cases, completely changed lifestyles and social habits. They have also created new revenue-generating streams and transformed business models. Today, with the marriage of the two giants, the so-called “portable Internet” revolution is underway. Ten years ago, no one could have imagined the ubiquity of the mobile phone around the world. Similarly, gadgets that seem like science fiction to us today will be commonplace in the world of tomorrow.

Technology does not exist in a vacuum. Alongside its development lie important human drivers and human consequences. The ubiquity of access to information and communication has had an undeniable and profound effect on human existence. But this is only the beginning. As innovations continue to cater to an ever-increasing user appetite for information and entertainment on the go, technology will pervade every aspect of human existence.

Data are presented for 206 economies with populations greater than 40’000 and where sufficient data are available.