First, some good news. The "digital divide", the gap in communications capability between developed countries and the rest of the world seems, against the odds, to be diminishing.

This is apparent from new figures published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency responsible for overseeing the harmonious development of the world's telecommunications infrastructure, including the approval of international standards.

Its statistics show, for example, that in January 1996, low and lower middle income countries had a 24 per cent share of the world's 1bn fixed telephone lines. By January last year, their share had risen to 35 per cent.

A similar pattern obtained among the global army of mobile telephone subscribers, now approaching the 1bn mark. At the beginning of 1996, lower income countries represented only 8 per cent of the total. By 2001, this had grown to 22 per cent.

This is not difficult to understand. The cost of installing mobile infrastructure is significantly less than the cost of the fixed variety, and some countries will have taken advantage of this to leap-frog earlier telecom technologies.

The ITU's latest figures also show that lower income countries accounted for 15 per cent of internet users by 2001, up from 4 per cent in 1996.

So, some cause for celebration. But not a lot. The same statistics show the nature of the divide is beginning to shift. There is increasing polarisation between high income and middle income countries and the very poorest. Middle income countries are already on their way to building world class networks but, according to the ITU: "In many of the least developed countries, problems such as civil instability, under-investment and poor management continue to undermine progress."

In other words, the rich are growing - and becoming richer - while the poorest are making little headway. The problem is most acute in Africa and the Arab states where telecoms traffic with the outside world is a mere trickle compared with the traffic between, say, North America and Europe. Vast tracts of sub-Saharan Africa have less than 1.5 fixed lines for every 100 inhabitants.

The problem has been exacerbated in recent years by advances in communications technology and the acceleration in the development, among richer nations, of an information society.

The level of investment in communications infrastructure in the west over the past few years may have beggared some companies and cast a pall over the industry, but it is only a temporary lull. All that unlit optical fibre, buried in North America and Europe, will be glowing red-hot in a few years as a flood of new, bandwidth-hungry applications flood the internet.

The scale of the divide has been apparent for years. It has been the subject of much hand-wringing at international conferences, but there have been only fitful attempts to ameliorate the problem. Organisations such as the UN sponsored WorldTel, for example, have had some success in attracting private funds to projects in developing countries.

It is, of course, a complex question in which political motives and stances are at least as important as technical and industrial considerations.

Against this background, the UN, working through the ITU, is making an ambitious effort to find ways of bridging the divide. It is in the early stages of planning a world summit to debate the problem to be held in two phases. The first will be held in Geneva next year: several days of debate will lead to the formulation of a declaration of principles and an action plan.

The second phase will take place in Tunis two years later. It will assess what progress has been made and whether further action is required.

Will this behemoth of a conference involving heads of state, industrial leaders, heads of UN agencies and representatives of civil society achieve much?

Yoshio Utsumi, the ITU's secretary general argues that the principal value will be created in the extensive preparatory meetings that are planned to generate data and formulate proposals for action.

He is hoping that the event will help the ITU shake off its image as a ponderous standards-setting body, often seen as out of touch with the speed of development of the modern industry.

The fact remains that the five years or so between the decision to organise the summit and its final phase in Tunisia is a long time in communications, reflecting the seemingly eternal mismatch between the speed of technical change and the ability of human institutions to deal with it.