Many people have a difficult time accessing information from the World Wide Web. In a lot of cases, a weak local telecommunications infrastructure means that connections to the Internet are very slow, making downloading information from many graphic-rich web sites nearly impossible.In other cases, particularly for visually impaired people, web sites are often not well-adapted for the types of special Internet browsers or monitor settings that they need to use.

Additionally, there are more mobile phones in the world than televisions and PCs combined! Millions of people are using their mobile phones to connect to the Internet.

The IT team in the World Scout Bureau has been looking into ways in which we can help in these situations.

The result of these developments has been the creation of three new versions to make accessing our web site easier for some: a low graphics version, a text only version and a "WAP-friendly" mobile phone news site. (Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the low bandwidth method of Internet access used in most mobile phones.)

Each version enables more people to overcome some of the difficulties they experience in accessing the information and news on our web site. The new versions all offer faster consultations even over slow connections or from older computers.

World Scouting will continue to innovate in its methods of communicating and reaching Scouts world-wide, ensuring that the Scouting community is better informed on its activities.
The three new versions are:

1) Low Graphics:

Our new low bandwidth version is better suited for use with dial-up modems and 3G type mobile phones (e.g. iPhones) where users want quicker access to the written content of all our articles but can easily chose to view any accompanying pictures or other graphic content whenever they wish. View it here:

English : scout.org/text/low
French : scout.org/texte/low

2) Text Only:

Our Text-only version downloads even faster than our low bandwidth version and is especially well-suited to visually-impaired readers who may be using specialised browsers (e.g. delivering web content through text-to-speech technologies). We are committed to working with such individuals in order to improve our current offering, whenever possible. View it here:

English : scout.org/text/only
French : scout.org/texte/only

Just like our full graphics version, our low-graphics and text-only versions give access to the entire web site content (with the exception of all the picture galleries). These 2 versions are now easily accessible from the main navigation menu.

3) Mobile:

Our Mobile version is designed for use by WAP-enabled mobile phones. It delivers the text of the top news items from the world and regional level front pages. By presenting only the latest articles from World News and all the Region News pages, it is focussed on keeping our members informed on what is happening now in World Scouting. IP address recognition ensures the Mobile version will display the region news according to which country the phone is currently located in! View it here:

English : scout.org/mobile
French : scout.org/fr/mobile

To facilitate access from a mobile phone, short links that allow direct access to the desired page have been created.
Use the following table to bookmark the page that you access the most often from your mobile device.

Africa Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/africa
French : scout.org/fr/mobile/africa

Arab Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/arab
Arabic : scout.org/ar/mobile/arab

Asia-Pacific Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/asia-pacific

Eurasia Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/eurasia
Russian : scout.org/ru/mobile/eurasia

Europe Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/europe
French : scout.org/fr/mobile/europe

Interamerican Region News :
English : scout.org/mobile/interamerican
Spanish : scout.org/es/mobile/interamerican