Resumen
This article focuses on the emergence of the Internet infrastructure in the developing world. The rise of the Internet also means confrontation with the established politico-economic telecommunication. Telephone companies were typically state-owned monopolies confined to a national territory. International telecommunications was the process by which these monopolies agreed to correspond and interconnect with each other under the aegis of the International Telecommunication Union. Data networking based on the TCP/IP computer network protocol suite will swallow up and subordinate circuit-switched voice networking-and probably much of video and audio communications as well. The Internet, coupled with telecommunications liberalization, is already beginning to disturb many of the importance and value of information, computer networking, and electronic-commerce are put to a severe test in various developing countries. The current Internet infrastructure is still highly skewed toward its U.S. origins. As the emerging economies come online, the characteristics of the Internet, the telecommunications infrastructure, and the global economy will change drastically. Analysis of Haiti's struggles with the government-owned telephone monopoly and political instability, shows that Internet connectivity can take unusual forms in unusual circumstances.