Cyberspace

Topic: World Transport and Communication · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 7 "Transport and Communication"

Meaning

Cyberspace is the electronic, computer-based world where people send and receive messages and information over computer networks such as the World Wide Web (WWW). Neither the sender nor the receiver has to move.

It matters because it widens economic and social life through e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance. Along with satellites, it made Marshall McLuhan's idea of a "global village" real.

Explanation

How it works

• It is built on the internet.
• The internet is the largest electronic network on Earth. It links computers and phones across the world so they can share information.

• Cyberspace is the "world" that this network creates. It is where messages, pages and services exist and move.

• Signals move, people do not.

• In transport, goods and people travel, so cost and time rise with distance.

• In cyberspace, only electronic signals travel. Neither the sender nor the receiver has to move.

• You can reach it from anywhere.

• A person can use it from an office, a boat or a plane.
• Satellites carry many of these signals. Their cost and time do not rise with distance, so sending a message 500 km costs the same as sending it 5,000 km.

How it widens economic and social space

• E-mail: messages arrive in seconds.
• E-commerce: buying and selling online.
• E-learning: studying online.
• E-governance: getting government services online.
• Result: work, trade, study and contact with the government no longer need people to meet in the same place.

How it grew

Year	Internet users (world)
1995	under 50 million
2000	about 400 million
2010	over 2 billion
2023	about 5.4 billion
2025	about 6 billion, about three-quarters of humanity [2]

• More than 240 million people came online in 2025 alone [2].
• The world took over from the USA.
• The US share of users fell from 66% (1995) to 25% (2005).

• Large numbers of users now live in the USA, UK, Germany, Japan, China and India.

• An older NCERT box puts users at about 1,000 million in over 100 countries. That figure is now out of date.

What it needs, and who is left out

• Conditions: a network link (cable, mobile tower or satellite), a device, and the ability to pay for and use it.
• Digital divide (the gap between people who can use the internet and people who cannot):
• About 2.2 billion people were still offline in 2025 [2].
• 96% of them live in low- and middle-income countries [2].

Gap (2025)	Share of people online
High-income vs low-income countries	94% vs 23% [2]
Urban vs rural	85% vs 58% [2]
Men vs women	77% vs 71% [2]
Age 15–24 vs everyone else	82% vs 72% [2]

Where it occurs

• Worldwide: about 6 billion users in 2025 [2]. The biggest user bases are in the USA, UK, Germany, Japan, China and India.
• Places with weak access: low- and middle-income countries, where 96% of offline people live [2], and rural areas in general, where only 58% of people are online compared with 85% in towns [2].
• India: extending cyberspace to remote areas
• LEO satellite internet (broadband from large groups of satellites flying low, a few hundred to about 2,000 km up) can reach places where laying cable costs too much. These include hills, islands, the North-East, Ladakh and ships at sea.
• The DoT has given GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite) licences to OneWeb India, Jio Satellite Communications and Starlink Satellite Communications [4].

• Capacity from foreign satellites can be used for broadband in India only after IN-SPACe authorisation [3]. IN-SPACe works under the Department of Space.

• Backbone in space: India's INSAT and GSAT communication satellites sit in geostationary orbit (about 36,000 km above the equator, where a satellite seems to stay fixed over one spot).

Don't confuse with

• Internet: the internet is the actual network of linked computers. Cyberspace is the electronic world of communication that this network creates.
• World Wide Web (WWW): the WWW is one service that runs on the internet. Cyberspace is the whole electronic space, which includes e-mail, e-commerce and more.
• Global village: this is Marshall McLuhan's idea (1960s) about the result, a world as closely linked as one village. Cyberspace is one of the tools that made this real, along with TV, radio and fax.
• Transport: transport moves goods and people, so cost rises with distance. Cyberspace moves only information, and no one has to travel.

Prelims Hooks

• Defining feature of cyberspace: neither the sender nor the receiver has to move. It can be used from an office, a boat or a plane.
• NCERT's four ways cyberspace widens economic and social space: e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance.
• The internet is the largest electronic network on Earth. The US share of its users fell from 66% (1995) to 25% (2005).
• ITU 2025: about 6 billion people online, about 2.2 billion offline, and 96% of offline people in low- and middle-income countries [2].
• "Global village": coined by Marshall McLuhan (1960s). NCERT credits communication, not transport, with making it real.
• Trap: the rural–urban online gap (58% vs 85%) is wider than the men–women gap (71% vs 77%) [2].

Mains Points

• Cyberspace has shrunk the world more than transport has:
• Information moves almost instantly, and no one has to travel.
• Satellite links cost the same over any distance.

• This powers e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance, and turns McLuhan's "global village" into fact (GS-I/III).

• The digital divide is a geographic divide:

• 94% of people are online in high-income countries but only 23% in low-income ones. The figure is 85% in towns but 58% in villages [2].
• In India, hills, islands, the North-East and Ladakh lag behind because laying cable there costs a lot.

• LEO satellite broadband can close part of this gap.

• Access to cyberspace raises sovereignty questions (GS-III):

• A foreign private satellite company can control a country's communication links, as Starlink does in Ukraine.
• India's answer is IN-SPACe authorisation, DoT licensing and administrative, not auction-based, spectrum allocation [3][4].
• India also builds its own systems, such as the INSAT/GSAT series.

Related concepts

• Internet
• Global village
• Low Earth orbit satellite internet

Read more

• Satellites, the internet and cyberspace