Global efforts to build internet infrastructure should focus on making the broadband universally accessible to allow massive exploitation of the technology to provide services, President Paul Kagame has urged.

The president made the call while speaking at a meeting of the UN-backed Broadband Commission for Digital Development in New York, U.S., yesterday.

Kagame, who is a co-chair of the commission, suggested that it should focus on strengthening policies that make broadband "an efficiently built and shared utility”.

"We have found that the model whereby private operators build parallel infrastructure, and compete to provide services in a few lucrative geographical areas is problematic. It duplicates network deployment costs, hampers economies of scale, and affects accessibility and affordability of services,” the President warned.

He said that the need to promote universal internet access is what has inspired the Government of Rwanda to contract South Korea’s largest telecom company, Korea Telecom,  in a joint venture to build and operate one single, high-speed (4G LTE ) broadband network across the country.

"We believe this will accelerate rollout and affordability of broadband services for Rwandans,” he noted.

Kagame said that beyond 2015, the way forward for global efforts should be to unleash the smart use of broadband.

"It is one thing to have the infrastructure and the tools in place; it is another to use them in a profitable manner,” he said.

He called for more use of broadband to enhance delivery of services in education, healthcare, banking and other sectors as well as in empowering young people in the developing world to innovate more and be more competitive globally.

The Broadband Commission for Digital Development – which President Kagame co-chairs along with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú – was set up in response to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s call to step up UN efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).