packet switching and specifically the new IPv6 protocol. Moreover, the Internet itself has certain unsustainable features, most specifically the underlying software it has grown up with, which assumes a benign world and so has significant security gaps; much will need to be replaced. At a more general level, the dominant role of the original OECD community in leading and setting global telecommunications standards and originating technology is no longer sustainable. Global infrastructure standards and INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 technology will increasingly appear from the NICs. Thus the traditional lead of the OECD may now be leapfrogged. Moreover, prior investments in traditional technology could hold back certain OECD member states, owing to the political inertia generated by protection of sunk investments in a fixed, low-bandwidth, high-cost, circuit-switched, national infrastructure. 2. Key factors driving future demand and infrastructure investment In coming decades, the demand for infrastructure services will be largely determined by a number of major drivers of change, including trends in the following areas: geopolitics; security; macroeconomy; finance; demography; environment; technology; governance; telecommunications pricing; microeconomics - primary consumer basics inflation. Geopolitics Geopolitics - the way political power is exercised at a global level - has strong implications for telecommunications. Telecommunications itself is increasingly shaping the geopolitical scene, both through direct communications and its diversification into multimedia content, spreading culture, news and political views. Internet access effectively opens the door to new and sometimes contrasting views and cultures, for instance the role of women in society. Mobile communications allows no act to go unobserved. Events in China, the Ukraine, Georgia have been reported, or popular political movements have been c