Digital Divide and its Variations amongst OECD, NIE and ASEAN Countries

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has developed rapidly in the recent decades. The industrial nations are the derivations of the development and use of new communication technologies. As such today industrial nations have a continuously higher communications technology standard. As a result the digital divide between the developing and industrial nations is large and growing with time. Knowledge is expected to be easily shared across geographical boundaries by using ICT technologies. Thus ICT is a powerful tool providing developing countries with opportunities to meet vital developmental goals such as basic health care, education and governance related reforms. However, many people in developing countries have neither the opportunity nor the necessary skills to use the technology. Therefore, this paper aims at computing parametric and non parametric composite indices of ICT across countries and over time. The indices will help to quantify the countries' status of distribution of communication technologies and the need for basic infrastructure for their development. The focus is on measuring the countries¡¯ readiness to participate in the technological innovations and in utilization of ICT based services and to rank the countries to quantify the overall digital divide and its development.