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純英原文：

India offline: Digital dead zones
Stalling internet growth is especially bad news for the poor

【1】When India?implemented?its first?lockdown?in?2020?and its schools moved over to online learning, Sharmila found herself in a?quandary. She is a maid in the?posh?western suburbs of Mumbai; she had enrolled her son and daughter in a fee-paying school. But her family?possessed?a single smartphone. So her children would either both have to skip some online classes or one would have to miss them all. Happily, her employers gave her a second smartphone, at a cost of?10,000?rupees ($122). That is more than Sharmila’s monthly wage.

【2】Most Indians lack such a?benefactor. Of the country’s roughly?1bn mobile-phone users, a third still use old-fashioned dumbphones, mainly for voice calls. And recent data suggest that they are not about to?upgrade?them. All but a tiny?proportion?of Indian internet users get online using their phones. Yet the number of?wireless?broadband?connections is flat. In October last year, the latest month for which figures are available, the telecoms?regulator?counted?790m?wireless?broadband?connections, barely?exceeding?the?previous?peak of?789m, which was recorded in August?2021. (The number of?subscribers?is lower than this, because many people have more than one connection.)

【3】 Smartphone sales are down. After growing for a decade, sales peaked at?161m units in?2021, according to idc, a market researcher, which reckons that last year the number fell to?148m. Meanwhile the average smartphone price has surged, from $163?before the?pandemic?to $220?in?2022.

【4】Prices are rising in part because of global factors, including supply-chain?bottlenecks?and rising?component?costs. But it is also because?manufacturers?no longer find it worth their while to sell ultra-cheap phones, says Navkendar Singh of idc. The market share of smartphones?costingless than $100?dropped from?30% in?2019?to?12% last year, according to Counterpoint, another research firm. Before the?pandemic?some?5m people traded up from a dumbphone to a smart one every month. That?dipped?last year to about?3m, says Shilpi Jain, an?analyst?with Counterpoint. Mobile?subscriptions?are getting?dearer, too. In the year to June?2022, prices rose?28%. The number of converts, from?dumb?to smart, is expected to fall again this year.

【5】Stalling growth in internet use will have?profound?implications?for millions of poor families. The government has increasingly?defaulted?to online solutions, including for booking covid-19?vaccinations. Most adults under?45?without a smartphone were at first told to?trek?to a government office to get?registered. Only after an?uproar?were walk-in?vaccinations?permitted.

【6】And that?row?has not?tempered?official?enthusiasm?for digitisation. A new programme aims to give every Indian “a?hassle-free method of?accessing?and?sharing?your health records?digitally”. The government is?enthusiastically?promoting?digital payments through its Unified Payments Interface, a?cashless?system that has gained?widespread?popularity. Its?biometrics-based national?identity?system now covers nearly every Indian?resident?and is all but?mandatory?when?interacting?with the state. A covid-tracking app was also?voluntary?in name only.

【7】A number of recent studies point to the scale, and deep?unfairness, of the digital?shortfall. gsma, a telecoms trade body,?estimates?that half of adult Indian men owned a smartphone in?2021. Only a quarter of Indian women did. Another?divide?is between?rural?and urban India. The internet?penetration?rate is?103% in cities (because of?individuals?with multiple connections) and?38% in the countryside. Three-quarters?of graduates have a mobile phone of some sort, while three-quarters?of those with primary-school education do not.

【8】These disparities risk?upending?what have been very?promising?efforts to improve Indian?governance?through digitisation. “The?evaluation?of what makes it better should be from the point of view of the average Indian,” says Apar Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital-rights organisation. “And the average Indian, especially in?rural?areas, does not have access to the internet.”

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