Communications and Media

INTRODUCTION
Internet is the most powerful tool in todays world as it can be used to solve a lot of problems that the developing countries are facing. In order to cope up with the global advancements these countries need to address a lot of issues that are being faced by them in everyday walks of life. Therefore it is of utmost importance that internet should be made available worldwide and for that a lot of efforts are required. It is necessary to address the issues that the internet is facing these days so that developing countries can address their own problems.

A lot of technological tools are facing the major problem of global inequality. Usually these tools are available in the developed countries but some developing countries do not get to benefit from them due to a lot of problems such as lack of resources.  This same problem is being faced by internet as well therefore it is important to make this tool available globally so that more and more countries can benefit from its use (Slater  Kwami).

In the very initial stage of internet adoption the main problem that countries faced were the problem of infrastructure that can support the internet.  Getting the telephone lines became an issue for the developing countries as without telephone internet connections were impossible to set up. Once this challenge was met by these countries, then came the challenge of distribution of internet connection and accessing it (Mansell).

As the usage of internet grows more system becomes more complex because it gets difficult to manage such a vast architecture. There are a number f protocols required to support internet services and these protocols need to be consistent enough to meet the future challenges of the internet.
Another problem of internet is regarding security issues. Internet is being used for many insecure means which includes sensitive transactions like personal data and also some destructive purposes. This is causing huge risks from the criminals as cyber crimes continue to increase at a very growing scale. There is a daily battle being faced by the individual users and network administrators to ensure the purity of internet usage (Slater  Kwami).

In order to deal with these problems such efforts are required which can help us achieve such architecture that is more flexible, sustainable and manageable. To achieve all these attributes have become a major challenge for all of us because we are still unsure that whether we will be able to make the future internet secure or not. The issue of viruses and spam still remains unsolved and no one is yet sure that whether we will be able to deal with this issue and make internet more reliable yet providing more services and functionalities. There are a number of socio economic challenges that can occur for the future internet, some of them are discussed below

The Internet Ecosystem
This is a very important issue to be addressed because the internet ecosystem practiced today is not a very healthy one. The pricing scheme does not match well with the economics due to which there is much inefficiency in the system. There are fewer incentives for expansions and the revenue system is also not favorable as it is benefitting only to some stake holders in the value chain. This enables the network operators to get involved in the user applications without their permissions (Horst and Miller).
   
It is also observed that dedicated connections are lying idle most of the time and the shared links become efficient therefore it is very important to have rules and regulations being set up for sharing so that healthy internet ecosystem can be set up. This is a very big challenge which can be addressed by merging the computer science with economics and identifying the key problems associated with the internet sharing technologies. Some of these key issues include that whether TCP is focusing on the economic perspectives or whether the sharing applications are an efficient combination of technology and pricing scheme. In order to build an appropriate mechanism a well defined incentive program needs to be set up which would allow the networks some incentives to provide the information and also to the users that would choose the mechanism that would enable their decisions on this information. This would help to achieve the right pricing structure for interconnection as well as application traffic (Mansell).

The Challenge of  a trustworthy internet
 Apart from the economic challenges, there are also social challenges associated with the use of internet. The use of internet is on the rise speedily. It has reached 20 worldwide and 30 penetration is expected till 2015 and 50 till 2020. Telecommunication systems have access to broadband and this is across the world exploiting the internet as the communities are greatly relying upon it.  The IP address space is depleting rapidly in fact it has been exhausted completely now.  This is a very major issue that needs to be taken in hand soon or else this can be an end to not only the E2E model but the internet itself too. Moreover as the internet is getting more widespread, the issue of trust is becoming a major dispute as well. As the use of mobile infrastructures become larger, the internet service providers would increase and more companies would offer their products online and the concept of business networking will also grow to a greater extent. In such a scenario trust will be the major issue. To overcome this we can take advantage of technologies which can help us by providing information regarding reliability of a service (Mansell).

Content Production and The System Customization
Contents are gaining a lot of importance for future internet. There are technologies coming up for contents exploitation and transmission and these technologies are gaining a lot of importance in todays world.
   
Customized systems are the foremost requirements of the consumers and it also provides an opportunity to come up with greater innovation and choices for the consumers, which helps in creating new business models and increase the revenue streams. This also causes threats and risks for the existing business models and these risks and threats cannot be ignored. The customized systems are on one hand bringing up more innovative ideas but on the other hand are breaking the existing business models. Today customization is still limited and the business models are not offering complete flexibility and yet they are causing serious threats to some industries. But it is expected that in near future the customized systems would increase rapidly therefore such systems and services are needed which can provide sustainability to the future internet (Larson 47).

Need for the internet Governance
The need for internet governance will become an important requirement for the future internet because the governance will be able to resolve issues like privacy, security, Intellectual property rights and data protection.

The User behavior
Characteristics of the end users behavior are important to guarantee the success of future internet. The users expectations need to be analyzed in order to modify the current internet design.  If we see the usage of internet in todays world then we can find out that there are multiple ways in which internet is being used which may include social networks, gaming, video conferencing etc and the devices that being used for internet may also take multiple forms. Today the main concern of the users is the reliability of the connectivity but this may change in the future. The future generation would be more concerned with the continuous adaptation of changes and advancements. They would want highly developed network services which can be compatible with the advanced applications requirements (Larson 26).

Many Separate Internets
Another major problem for future internet would be that many individual efforts would result in many different initiatives of separate internets. This would bring up more innovative ideas but will also cause a threat of incompatible internets. These separate internets can also cause market fragmentation  .To avoid this there is a need to design global future internet because the separate internets would lead to confusion among the consumers that which internet they should be using and thus will raise value of some and decrease the value of some internets. Even the Network operators will have to gamble on the choice of their internet. Researchers will have to choose the areas where they can publish their work and thus reaching out to the critical mass will become difficult. All this would raise the competition among the separate internets and thus the costs will be increased. There will be many conflicts among the various internets and the features and compatibility offered by each would be different hence this would shake the trust of the users and there will be more confusions as to which internet they should be using (Gralla 86).

Major Security issues
It is a known fact that nowadays the security of internet is at a stake. A lot of such programs are developed that harm the computer systems in which they are installed. Data security is another main issue. It has become very difficult to maintain the confidentiality of personal data.  On one hand internet is the most powerful tool for connecting people and resources but on the other hand the integrity of the resources is hard to maintain. There are so many information available by various companies organizations and other sources but much of this information must be considered as garbage yet there is a lot of valuable information available. The problem that an individual faces is that which of the information can be trusted as the reliable source.  Companies and organizations are spending a lot of money to secure their information and data yet they are finding it difficult to secure it (Horst and Miller).

Other social problems
The security mechanisms that are being introduced require certain prices from the users which make the usage more complicated for the consumers. It is usually not very affordable solutions which any consumer can benefit from therefore they end up inventing certain tricks which can be harmful for them. Apart from this people also get frustrated by memorizing various passwords and PIN codes as it gets very difficult to remember too many of them. Inspite of using the internet for many years, people still do not consider it as a reliable source. This is the reason why people hesitate before providing their credit card details on internet but pay with the same card in the shops of foreign countries (Sandusky).

The Human Resource
Inspite of the availability of internet and other resources, the major issue that the developing countries are facing is the skills and knowledge required for the proper use of internet. Knowledge about network administration is also required. Specialized knowledge in all these areas are usually missing or is in short supply in the developing countries. Therefore causing limited human resource with which they can best use the internet service (Gralla 34).

The Use of Mobile Phones for Internet Purposes
To make the future of internet more consistent and secure, there is a need of making strict rules and regulations for the internet. Currently there are no set rules for the internet and as opposed to internet, telecommunication sector is governed by strict regulations therefore in  future the internet and telecommunications can merge together to form the networks of the future (Sadowsky).
 
All the problems associated with the use of internet can not be solved by the mobile phones yet there are many issues that can be addressed by the use of internet on mobile phones. One of the major problems faced by developing countries is the required infrastructure for the internet usage. There are many internal and external factors that need to be considered while building up this infrastructure. Internal problems may include the availability of equipments and reliability of electrical power and availability of computers and related peripherals required for networking.  All these internal issues can be resolved with the use of mobile phones

Saving energy is also one of the major challenges faced by the developing countries and with the growing use of computer this challenge cannot be met by these countries. However, if mobile phones are used, much of the energy can be saved because using internet on desktop requires much more energy as compared to the mobile phones. Communication becomes quicker through mobile phones because it is easily accessible and convenient to use, as compared to desktop therefore internet on mobile phones can be more preferable. Users can also use it anywhere and anytime they want, even while travelling, without any hassles (Slater  Kwami).
   
It is a general practice in the developing countries that they use mobile phones and internet for very divergent purposes. Although both the mediums are used to stay connected with the world yet the purpose of connection is diverse. Mobile phones are used to stay connected with family and known friends whereas they use the internet to make new friends from the foreign countries who are completely strangers for them. This new relation with the foreign friends remain formal for them as they just stay connected with them through the internet and do not shift them to their mobile phone contact list. While talking to them on the internet they are not able to gain complete trust in this new relation as there is still ambiguity left. If these people start interconnecting mobile phones and internet usage then they will be able to build a more trustworthy and fruitful relation with the foreign countries and can make their personal and business relations more successful and in this way benefit with the outside world to a greater extend (Sadowsky).
   
People in the developing world are usually using the mobile phones and internet, merely to stay connected with the world and ignores the informative side of the two mediums. Individuals in these countries have a practice of using these mediums for emails, chat and phone conversation rather then as a medium to enhance their knowledge about the outside world. They are hardly aware of the importance of search engines for getting information for them. They are hardly aware of the useful web links and do not keep it a practice of visiting different websites to gain knowledge but they simply use it as a medium of communication. There is great a need to educate these people about the diverse use of these mediums so that they can better use the two for availing the best out of it. Mobile phones can be a very useful tool in the education process as SMS is the basic feature which every individual is aware of and is very effective sources of making people implement changes and advancements. SMS is a very direct point of connect for these people and they are so much inspired by this medium that whatever information provided through it would be quickly adopted by these people. Therefore the major challenge of internet usage which is the lack of skills of internet use in the people of developing countries can be overcome by mobile phones.

CONCLUSION
It is quite clear now that mobile phones and internet are two separate mediums of communication and information but their usage should always be interconnected so that complete benefits can be achieved from these powerful tools and in order to do so we need to find ways to overcome the challenges of the internet to make the future internet more secure, available and useful for the world. Most of these challenges can be met by mobile phones as explained above, therefore it is very important to educate people in developing countries about the proper use of internet so that they do not just use it for communication purposes but also use the internet to gain more fruitful results out of it.