Consumers in Asia get less value for money than their counterparts in N America. One reason for this is that the key input of international connectivity is expensive (300% that in Europe and N America). More cables, undersea and terrestrial, are needed to bring these prices down. The Indian Ocean has fewer cables than the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Asian land mass has almost none. UNESCAP’s ICT Committee considered these issues, giving primacy to affordability and reliability at its meeting on 24-26 November 2010. The slideset that I used in my presentation to the Committee is given below.