Communication International Data Communications: A

¶ … Communication International Data Communications: A Comparison of Population and Communications Systems in the United States and Panama The current era is known as the Information Age with good reason; the creation and the communication of data and information can now occur on a scale unimaginable even in the first half of the twentieth century.

Of course, by this point in the development of technology communication was already occurring in ways and at rates that were themselves unimaginable a century earlier -- inventions like the radio and the television being added to the ranks of the telephone and the telegraph in the list of advancements so important to the modern understanding of the world that now includes the computer, cell phone, and Internet as well. Not all parts of the world developed at the same rate, however, largely due to economic differences.

A modern comparison of data communications systems in different countries must take into account the economic differences that exist between these countries, as well as current population differences that necessarily have an impact on the communications needs and capabilities of the different nations. The United States has consistently been a leading innovator and developer of communications technologies and systems, from the telegraph to the telephone to the Internet. There are currently over one-hundred and fifty-million land telephone lines in the country, with two-hundred-and-seventy-million mobile lines (CIA 2010b).

This greatly exceeds the current estimated population of the United States of just over three-hundred-and-seven-million; the world's largest economy also has the highest percentage of Internet users (and is second only to the vastly more populous China in absolute numbers), and has by far the greatest number of Internet servers as well (CIA 2010b). In combination with abundant satellite and international cable resources, the U.S. has one of the most -- if not the most -- advanced and comprehensive data communications systems in the world.

It might be thought that Panama's communication systems would hardly be able to compare to those of the United States, and indeed in absolute terms there is a clear abundance of communication capabilities in the United States, which has been and remains more economically sound and more balanced than Panama, where over a third of the population lives below the poverty line (Stoute 2010). In spite of this, Panama actually has a very well-integrated and fairly well-supported data communications infrastructure.

The country serves as a connection point for several regional submarine cables, connecting it directly to many countries in Central and South America as well as to the United States, and from thence to the rest of the world (CIA 2010a). As of 2008, the number of combined land and mobile phone lines in Panama surpassed the population by more than a third, suggesting that a greater abundance of Panamanians are truly able to take advantage of the burgeoning communications network in the country and the area (CIA 2010a).

Again, in terms of number and to some degree in terms of proportion the United States clearly has a communications advantage over its much smaller and much less economically advantaged regional neighbor. Panama supports a large number of radio stations in comparison to its population, however (which is.