Asia-Pacific info highway to bliss

The biggest barrier to any new infrastructure is cost. Yet the actual costs of fiber optic materials and conduits are almost negligible. The real challenges are labor costs of excavation, the costs of securing rights of way, especially across borders, as well as the implicit costs of disruptions and delays in the areas under construction. In member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development, for example, these costs together represent an average of 50-80 percent of all spending on optical fiber use.

ESCAP believes that the Asia-Pacific region should take a different tack. We boast the world's widest system of seamless physical connectivity - 143, 000 kilometers of the Asian Highway and another 117,000 km of Trans-Asian Railway networks. Cemented by intergovernmental treaties and administered by ESCAP, they offer an unmatched opportunity for "co-habitation" of ICT and transport and other infrastructure networks - synchronizing optical fiber conduit rollout with land transportation construction. Unexpected, yet perfect partners, in building better connectivity.

Apart from saving costs of up to 80 percent, this "dig once, use many times" approach expands and diversifies the revenues generated by infrastructure construction: a win-win for governments, private sector investors and newly connected communities.

In partnership with the International Telecommunications Union, ESCAP has recently mapped existing fiber optic infrastructure connectivity in Asia and the Pacific. Our online, interactive map is the first to feature integrated terrestrial and submarine backbone networks, as well as cross-country connections on a single consolidated platform. Our goal is that this will lead to greater coordination between countries, and also between governments and the private sector, in making the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway both a concrete and a virtual reality.

The time for policy action is now. Our region must capitalize on this opportunity to build the inclusive and sustainable Asia-Pacific we need, taking the next big leap in regional connectivity to ensure future prosperity for all our people.

The author is an under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.