Word: access
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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McCain's trip, however, was a reminder of the U.S. media's endless fascination with his personal story. It's testimony, too, to his style of giving total access to journalists and the unprecedented favorable press he receives in turn. Remarkably, NBC covered McCain's expenses and those of his wife and staff; more than half a dozen other news organizations tagged along on their own dime...
Mamani aside, the Internet has a relatively restricted clientele in Latin America because it takes a lot more money to Net surf there than it does in the U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs) charge access fees as high as $50 a month, and calls on traditional phone lines, which are mostly metered rather than per use, remain expensive. Across Latin America, these costs add up. Depending on the long-distance configuration, 20 hours of Web surfing can cost a single user between $20 and $300. Throw in at least $700 for a computer with a modem, and for many...
...easy to see why these figures have many governments, development agencies and human-rights organizations worrying about a growing "digital divide" in Latin America between those with money and access to information and those with neither. To span that chasm, Latin governments are embarked on a number of initiatives that will help citizens join the wired world. Among them is a project funded by the Mexican state of Aguascalientes and the Inter-American Development Bank that placed computers in all public secondary schools in the state and wired more than half of them to the World Wide...
...Internet business community believes the market will naturally reach down to include the middle class and some of those below, whether governments help or not. "The poor will have access," says Roberto Wilson, partner at the Rio-based private-equity firm CVC/Opportunity Equity Partners, because "the working poor consume." Many entrepreneurs and analysts point to the example of television in Brazil, where, despite extreme poverty, more than 80% of households own a set. "This is not a rich country, but things really penetrate," says Alvaro de Castro, director of business development at Web incubator Visualcom and author of two books...
...major step toward that goal came, last December, when a wave of ISPs began offering completely free access. Today Brazilians can choose from a number of free ISPs, including one, Catolico.com.br owned by a Roman Catholic diocese. Another free ISP, iG.com.br expected a television-ad blitz to bring in 60,000 applicants over three months. Instead, the company got 940,000 in eight weeks. "The consumers were more ready for this than we were," says iG vice president Matinas Suzuki...