Geographies of the tropical Internet: An overview

The literature on the geography of cyberspace has focused heavily on the economically developed countries in the mid-latitude regions of the world. This paper addresses the spatiality of the Internet among countries located in the tropics. It charts the network of optical fibre lines that make access possible and the critical role played by telecommunications deregulation. It also accounts for the rapidly changing pools and explosive growth of Internet users between 2000 and 2005 in relation to the socioeconomic variables closely associated with access: costs, wealth, literacy and telephone penetration rates. Finally, the paper also looks at government censorship in various regional contexts and summarizes the status of e-commerce and e-government in different regions within the tropics.