Broadband infrastructure is the prerequisite that enables people to meaningfully participate in the data-driven economy, as well as to put to good use the “beauty” of datafication. Developing countries and LDCs need FDI to build their digital infrastructures. However, the economic benefit of the GATS Mode 3 market access commitments in the telecommunications sector has never been realized in many states. In this context, from Mexico – Telecom to Brazil – Taxation, the mere fact that the responding parties must have attempted to stretch the scope of the “universal services” or “public morals” to justify their digital inclusion policies within the WTO indicates that the interplay between international economic law and digital inequality invites further reflection. The pressing task for trade negotiators is to find the common ground necessary to balance digital trade liberalization and development needs, rather than creating another “Digital ‘Haves’ Trade Agreement.” One policy direction discussed in Chapter 1 is to impose obligations on big tech companies to contribute their fair share to universal service funds needed for infrastructure upgrades. Such a reform, of course, should be implemented in a transparent, nondiscriminatory, and competitively neutral manner, as required by the Telecom Reference Paper.

China’s electricity industry has recorded immense achievements in many areas: growth, technical upgrading and innovation, improved reliability, and universal service. This record of excellence coexists with massive inefficiency. Despite multiple cost advantages, the unit cost of producing, transmitting and delivering electricity is at least 30 percent higher in China than in the United States. Latent potential for cost reduction clusters in coal-fired generation that supplies about two-thirds of total output. New reforms that deepen the influence of market forces will strengthen financial pressures and thus increase the likelihood of achieving potential cost reductions, perhaps increasing the output and share of coal-fired thermal plants.