Bridging the digital divide in Algeria, what’s the role of universal service program?: case study: universal service program in Bordj Bou Arreridj province

Abstract

Every country in the world aims to enable all its citizens to use Information and Communi-cation Technologies (ICT), regardless of where they live by adopting strategies and methods that contribute to supplying remote places with the necessary equipment for the purpose of connecting villages and areas characterized by difficult terrain and rough roads to enable communication for their people, among the strategies adopted by the state of Algeria is the Universal Service Program, the purpose of this research is to highlight the role of this pro-gram in providing telephone and internet services in remote areas which leads to bridge the Digital Divide by analysis the research results of one of its cities (Bordj Bou Arreridj Prov-ince). The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with the Ex-ecutive Director of Post and Telecommunication as the first responsible of monitoring this program in the province and with 4 managers at the department of ICT, as well as through documentary sources existing at the same organisation. Through this study we concluded that the role of this program is to connect rural areas with ICT, provide electronic services, integrate citizens in the digital age and promote equality among them, as a final result, we discovered that the program contributed really in bridging the Digital Divide in Algeria.