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The case of Singapore highlights the fact that the cyberworld is not -- and probably never will be -- a global village in which everybody speaks the same language and thinks the same thoughts. On the contrary, every country tends to remodel its piece of the network according to its cultural preferences. Even Canada, despite its many commonalities with the U.S. -- including its phone system -- does things its own way. ``Are we any different?'' asks David Sutherland, head of computing and communications at Ottawa's Carleton University. ``The answer is typically Canadian: yes and no. Because of our cultural differences, we seem more bent on local activity than on reaching across the country.'' In that spirit, Canadians have more local ``freenet'' connections per capita than their southern cousins -- a total of nine community services that provide free local access to the Internet. Canadians also claim a computer culture that is both more open and more self- regulating than in the U.S. ``Our philosophy is to permit an open dialogue'' with as little policing as possible, says Sutherland. ``We have had the odd loony and the occasional inappropriate posting, but over a year and a half we've had an amazingly civil environment.''
Like the U.S., Canada is experimenting with two-way data services. Le Groupe Videotron Limitee, a firm based in Montreal, plans to start an experimental system in the city of Chicoutimi, Quebec, that will send and receive electronic mail, regulate thermostats, order pay-per-view movies and get weather reports and stock market quotes. If it works, the plan is to widen it to as many as 1.5 million homes in Montreal and Quebec City. Outside the relatively well-wired confines of North America, however, getting connected can still be a frustrating and costly experience. In Europe and parts of Asia, monopolistic state telephone systems erect a bewildering array of speed limits and tollgates that make traveling the Infobahn a costly and often frustrating experience. High long-distance fees and connection surcharges levied by monopolistic government communications ministries can make the use of the Internet and such services as CompuServe and America Online unduly expensive for ordinary users. Some countries outlaw communications equipment without an official government imprimatur, which can double or even quadruple the prices of such items as modems and two-way telephone jacks.
Even after they get connected, users need access to good-quality telephone lines, which are neither as ubiquitous nor as cheap as in the U.S. Waiting lists for phone connections range from mere weeks in France to years -- or never -- in the communications-deprived nations of the former Soviet Union.
France is usually cited as the glowing exception to the restrictive European pattern. In the early 1980s, the French government launched Minitel -- a small-screen unit with a keyboard that plugs into a normal telephone wall outlet to connect users with a wide variety of information services. Minitel is now a familiar object in many French homes, partly because of its reputation -- deserved -- as a commercial conduit for suppliers of both hard and soft porn. Despite that sleaze factor, Minitel set the standard during the 1980s as the world's first truly practical and inexpensive provider of interactive services for a mass market. It was, and is, the VW Beetle of the information age.