Maldistribution of telecommunications facilities within countries

In many countries that have expanded their telephone services, concentration has too often focused on development in and between urban centres, overlooking the great need for and advantages to be gained from links between villages, and between rural outposts and the provincial centres. A single community telephone connecting local teachers and health workers to larger administrative centres, farmers with central markets, and local leaders with district officers, would certainly bring important and beneficial change to village life. Nevertheless, there are many more countries which have not expanded sufficiently, or have ignored totally the need for telephone services. They do not belong solely to the group of least developed countries; there are examples even at higher levels of development, such as in socialist countries.