Digital Data

Submarine Cable

2008-12-22T11:56:00.002-05:00

BBC reports on a cable break in the Mediterranean and that it "could have serious repercussions on regional economies."

The subject of submarine cables is fascinating. Connection to a cable is crucial for participating in today's information economy.

Interesting a rticle about the laying of cable written by Neal Stephenson that appeared in Wired several years ago. Unfortunately the link just has the text; I remember that the printed version had some interesting photos.

Will blog on this more including submarine cable initiatives in Africa, access to cable and bits per capita measurements.

Mobile Number Portability Around the World

2008-10-31T11:50:00.017-04:00

Mobile phones are almost as ubiquitous as other personal accessories such as a wrist watch or a wallet. Many people go everywhere with their cellphone so that a mobile telephone number is typically the one sure way that a person can be reached. Therefore, it is important to want to keep that number when changing operators.

Mobile number portability (MNP) is the subject of a new TMG, Inc. report, Mobile Number Portability Around the World. MNP started a little over a decade ago. Somewhat surprisingly, less than 50 countries in the world today allow mobile users to keep their mobile number when changing providers. Most of these countries are in developed countries and the two largest mobile markets, China and India, do not currently provide for mobile number portability. This has kept the number of people who have ported their mobile number relatively low at some 150 million. The main argument against MNP has been the cost of implementation.

Hong Kong leads the world in the proportion of users who have kept their mobile number when changing providers. Statistically, every mobile subscriber in Hong Kong has changed provider once while keeping their mobile number.

Mobile Number Portability Around the World is an unparalled source of statistics on MNP with data showing the number of ports for each country and for each year that MNP has been in existence.

For more information or to order the report see: http://reports.tmgtelecom.com/mnp/

Trade in Information and Communication Services: Opportunities for East and Southern Africa

2008-05-08T02:30:00.005-04:00

This study was commissioned by the Global Information and Communication Technologies Department (GICT) of the World Bank and prepared by Telecommunications Management Group, Inc. (TMG). Funding for the study was provided under a Bank-Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP) grant (Trust fund No 056459). It is based on interviews and research conducted in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda in October 2006 and during follow-up meetings in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in September-November 2007.

The study looks at ICT from a trade perspective, highlighting three types of ways electronic information services impact exports: directly, by enabling trade and through facilitating trade: The report establishes a framework for benchmarking the ICT competitiveness of East African countries:

The publication is available here

IPTV: The Killer Broadband Application

2008-04-21T15:52:00.009-04:00

TMG issues a new report on the number of IPTV subscribers around the world and a wealth of other statistics and market information. See:

IPTV Gathering Steam: Almost 10 Million Television-Over-Broadband Subscribers Worldwide

The report can be ordered here

The Economist has a nice chart from the report: Broadband TV

United Nations E-Government Readiness Index

2008-01-26T16:05:00.001-05:00

The United Nations has published five reports on e-government. There is an overall "E-Government Readiness" index that factors in the e-government web measure, infrastructure and human capital. The web measure index is the pure e-government index. There are now four years of web measure indexes available (2003, 2004, 2005, 2007); the 2001 values are not included because a different methodology was used.

See: http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/index.aspx

Is the Internet Stuck?

2005-11-22T09:38:00.000-05:00

Is the Digital Divide growing or shrinking? In a relative sense, the divide seems to be shrinking. The number of Internet users around the world grew from 381 million in 2000 to 795 million in 2004, an annual average growth rate of 20%. Growth was higher in developing countries so that their share of the world’s Internet users rose from 21% in 2000 to 39% in 2004. The number of Internet users per 100 inhabitants in developing countries was 1.6 in 2000 rising to 5.9 by 2004. As a result, the relative difference in Internet penetration between developed and developing countries dropped from 19.5 to 8.5 between 2000 and 2004. These numbers suggest that the digital divide is shrinking.

Although the relative difference between developed and developing countries has decreased, the absolute difference has increased. The difference between Internet users per 100 inhabitants in developing and developed countries rose 13.6 points between 2000 and 2004, from 30 to 43.6. One alarming statistic is that the annual growth rate in Internet users has been declining since 1998. The intense focus governments around the world have been giving information and communication technology (ICT) has not translated into a dramatic rise in growth and the Internet risks “getting stuck.” If the decline in growth rates continues, then it is unlikely that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) goal “to ensure that more than half the world’s inhabitants have access to ICTs within their reach” will be met by 2015. [1] At current trends, less than a fifth of the developing world will be online by 2015 (see Figure).
[1] See WSIS Plan of Action, “B. Objectives, goals and targets” available at http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/poa.html

WSIS endorses the Digital Opportunity Index

2005-11-20T02:40:00.000-05:00

The second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which met in Tunisia in November 2005, endorsed the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) as a tool for measuring the Digital Divide. Paragraph 115 of the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society says:

"We also note the launch of the ... Digital Opportunity Index, which will build upon the common set of core ICT indicators as they were defined within the Partnership on Measuring the ICT for Development. "

The DOI consists of 11 internationally endorsed ICT indicators classified in three categories: Opportunity, Infrastructure and Usage. One of the highlights of the DOI is its ability to analyze ICT development along both a fixed and wireless path (see figure). This reflects the importance of mobile communications for reducing the Digital Divide around the world.

For more on the DOI see Measuring the Gap

Measuring mobile competition

2005-11-19T02:33:00.000-05:00

The competitiveness of the telecommunications sector is an important determinant of market development. But measures to reflect this are often lacking or simplistic. For example, a proxy is often employed with a value of 3 assigned if a country has full competition, 2 if it has “partial” competition, 1 if it has a duopoly (two operators) and 0 if there is a monopoly. This type of measure not only lacks granularity (a more precise reflection of how intense competition is in markets where it exists) but also raises questions such as the definition of “partial” competition and the difference with a duopoly. Another method used is based on the number of operators under the assumption that the more there are, the better. This has limitations since some countries issue regional licenses for telecommunications resulting in a relatively large number of operators but not necessarily more competition. A market organized on regional lines with 3 regions and two operators per region would have 6 operators. It is a less competitive market than a country with 3 operators with nationwide licenses.

One way to measure the intensity of competition is to use the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI is based on the market shares of each company operating in an industry. The market share for each company is squared; these are then added up to get the HHI. A monopoly market would have an HHI of 10’000, a duopoly with each operator having half the market would have an HHI of 5’000 and a market with 4 operators each having the same market share would have an HHI of 2’500. The HHI is computed for the Israeli mobile market (based on subscribers) which had four operators at the end of 2004:

Operator Market share Market share squared
Partner 32% 1,024
Cellcom 34% 1,156
Pelephone 30% 900
MIRS 4% 16
Total 100% 3,096

The HHI has been calculated for 40 major economies for the year 2004. The most competitive mobile market is Hong Kong with an HHI of 1897. The least competitive is Mexico with an HHI of 5,873 . The impact of competition is noticable. Hong Kong has the most affordable pre-paid prices in the world at US$3.35 per month. Mexico has an HHI some three times higher than Hong Kong; mobile prices in Mexico are also some three times higher than in Hong Kong.

Top ICT countries

2005-11-18T17:11:00.002-05:00

The Nordic countries are the most digitally developed in the world, sweeping four out of the top five ranks. This is based on an average of ranks in over a dozen ICT indexes compiled by different organizations. Sweden is in a league of its own, sweeping first place in almost half the indexes.

UN adopts core ICT indicators

2005-02-16T11:13:00.000-05:00

A group of UN agencies adopted a list of core ICT indicators at a meeting in Geneva in February 2005. The intent is to have a common list of indicators to enhance international comparisons. The group of agencies, known as the "Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development" consists of the ITU, OECD, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, UN Regional Commissions, the UN ICT Task Force and the World Bank.

The core indicators are classified into three categories: Infrastructure and access core indicators (12 indicators), Access and use of ICTs by households and individuals (13 indicators) and Access and use of ICTs by businesses (12 indicators).

The list of core indicators is here:

China is Number 2

2004-12-06T14:14:00.002-05:00

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported that there were 79.5 million Internet users over the age of six in mainland China in December 2003. That makes China the second largest country in the world in terms of Internet users after the US. This is a ten-fold increase since CNNIC’s first survey back in October 1997 when it reported just 620’000 users. China attained its first fully functional Internet connection on 20 April 1994, a 64 kbps link to the US. Just short of a decade later, by the end of 2003, international Internet bandwidth had grown to 27,216 Mbps.

It may be some time however until China catches up with the US. Based on current trends, the US will reach an Internet penetration of 100% with some 314 million users in 2012. At that time, China would have around 236 million users for a penetration of 17%. So while China’s Internet growth has been impressive, it will have to go to even higher levels to get a majority of its population online within the next decade.

See CNNIC's 13th Statistical Survey on the Internet Development in China (PDF).

For more on China's see China's Information Revolution by Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang of The World Bank

Superstars of the Mobile Internet

2004-11-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

No surprise: Japan and the Republic of South Korea lead the world in using mobile phones to access the Internet. What is noteworthy is that for the first time a methodological framework has been used to rank countries by mobile Internet penetration. A new report, Superstars of the Mobile Internet: Top ten mobile multimedia nations, calculates the number of mobile Internet users for 45 major economies comprising over 90% of worldwide mobile subscribers.

The report argues that the term mobile multimedia user is preferred when describing people who use their mobile phones (or mobile networks) to download entertainment, exchange picture messages and access the Internet. That is because some of these activities may not necessarily involve the use of the Internet but do require a higher degree of sophistication than sending simple text messages.

Perhaps surprisingly, France ranks third in the world. The French telecommunication regulator, ART began reporting the number of mobile multimedia users in March 2004, when it noted there were 6.7 million. These statistics are featured in its mobile observatory quarterly releases. ART supplies a fairly detailed definition of mobile multimedia user.

Apart from Japan and South Korea, the only other Asian nation in the top ten is Singapore. The other countries in the top ten are all from Western Europe--either large nations such as Germany, Spain and the UK or Nordics such as Finland, Norway and Sweden. The report estimates that there were 86 million mobile multimedia users around the world in 2003.

Data used in the report were compiled from official sources such as government regulatory agencies, mobile operators and national statistical offices. Considerable time was spent on sorting out different definitions, data formats and derivations to arrive at a comparable data set. A key feature of the analysis was comparing operator reported administrative records with national statistics office surveys. The report proposes a set of key mobile multimedia indicators that operators and regulators should consider collecting to enhance comparability.

There is a press release for Superstars of the Mobile Internet.
For information on ordering the report, click here.

Computer literacy in Sri Lanka

2004-11-26T00:35:00.001-05:00

Source: http://www.statistics.gov.lk/cls2004/comp_lit_map.htm

"The successive governments of Sri Lanka have taken many progressive initiatives to develop Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Sri Lanka. For all citizens, ICT has been found to be beneficial as ICT can provide solutions to the various needs of the citizens. For citizens to get the maximum benefits from these projects they need to be computer literate.
Certain groups are far less likely than others to have computers or online access. Lack of such access affects the ability of children to improve their learning with educational software, adults to acquire valuable technology skills, and families to benefit from them. This phenomenon is called digital divide. There is growing concern about the implications of ‘digital divide’, whereby some social groups lack the means to access new Information and Communication Technologies, while others reap labour market rewards for being on the cutting edge of these technologies.
To plan and implement strategies to minimize this gap, a comprehensive examination of computer use in work places, homes and community settings is required. The extent to which students have access to computers at school and at home may be an indicator of how well prepared students will be to enter into technological workplaces which demands computer literacy.
The Department of Census and Statistics conducted a pilot study to assess the computer literacy of household population in the group of 5 – 69 years of Sri Lanka as well as to find out to what extent they use computers for various activities including use of e-mail and internet facilities. Availability of home computers, e-mail and internet facilities etc in the households were also assessed by this study. This study was conducted as a household survey. Household members in the age group of 5 – 69 years of scientifically selected 11,500 households covering all districts other than Mulativu and Kilinochchi were interviewed.
Sri Lanka is still not a fully-fledged computer user. Therefore, it is not possible to adopt definitions on computer literacy used by developed countries. In defining computer literacy for this survey, some sort of level of comfort around computers rather than a look of fear and a feeling of foreboding was used. For this survey a person was considered as computer literate if he/she could do something on his/her own using a computer. For example, if a child of 5 years old could play a game using a computer on his/her own, he/she was considered as computer literate. Some key findings of this study are described below.
Estimation of computer literacy of the household population in the age group of 5 to 69 years of Sri Lanka was the main objective of this study. At national level, 10 percent of the above population is computer literate. Western Province reported the highest computer literacy rate of 15.3 percent and the lowest percentage of 5 percent was reported from Uva and North Central provinces. "

EuroNet

2004-11-24T19:46:00.000-05:00

European countries have bound together as the European Union and established a common currency, the Euro. This collaboration has also extended to measuring Internet users. The Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) has been coordinating standard household surveys so that inter-country comparisons of Internet use are more accurate. Just as all countries have not embraced the Euro, not all have adopted the standard methodology for measuring Internet use. However a majority has and in 2003, 12 western European Union statistical offices (along with Iceland and Norway) carried out surveys measuring Internet use among those between the ages of 16 and 75. The Nordic nations lead the pack while Greece finishes last. Half of the European Union population was online in 2003 but there is a massive digital divide even among such a fairly homogenous group. Iceland leads the pack with some 4 out of 5 people using in the Internet; at the other extreme, less than one in five Greeks are online. The data are also disaggregated by sex, age and other characteristics. So while the Irish may not be tops in Internet use, they rank high in gender equality with women using the Internet in almost the same proportion as men. The standard questionnaire is a major breakthrough in measuring Internet penetration and hopefully more regions will follow suit. The Asia-Pacific Internet Research Alliance (APIRA) is trying to do the same thing for Asia; one issue is that the sample population for the Asian nations includes those from six years old, distorting comparisons with European countries.
The EUROSTAT survey is available here.
A summary of the results is available here.

October 2004: Mobile passes fixed in India

2004-11-24T18:08:00.000-05:00

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) announced that the number of mobile telephone subscribers surpassed fixed telephone subscribers in October 2004. That makes India one of the last large developing nations to reach this milestone. Mobile was launched in India just over nine years ago in August 1995. The first half decade of India’s mobile history was uneventful with the industry bogged down by high license fees and a cumbersome scheme of regional licenses. Things began changing when license fees were reduced for traditional mobile operators in exchange for allowing fixed-wireless operators to extend their limited mobility to a full-fledged nationwide service. As a result, mobile growth skyrocketed and today India has the ninth largest cellular network in the world measured by the number of subscribers. There is still plenty of room for growth with penetration just above four. See the TRAI Press Release of 8 November 2004, Growth in Telecom continues in October 2004: Mobile Subscribers Crosses Fixed Line Subscribers

Mobile-only households

2004-10-30T19:01:00.001-04:00

The US presidential race has drawn attention to the impact that people who only use cellphones may have on polls. Apparently, pollsters are not allowed to call mobile phones (the US uses the receiving party pays system for cellphones). With a growing number of people abandoning fixed lines in favor of wireless phones, this could have an impact on poll results. According to Mediamark Research, Inc., 69% of American homes have a mobile phone. Of those, 63% also have a fixed line while 5.5% of households use only mobile phones.
Finland, home to Nokia, the world's top cellphone vendor, has perhaps the highest ratio of wireless-only households. According to Statistics Finland, 39% of households there use only mobile phones. Now that would really throw off the polls.

How many online in the US?

2004-10-28T17:45:00.000-04:00

The US is one of the few developed nations where a government agency does not carry out an annual survey of Internet usage. The national statistical agency, the Bureau of the Census, does carry out irregular surveys with the last back in September 2001. However, in the rapidly changing Internet world, this is insufficient. On-going monitoring of the Digital Divide, in the country that coined the phrase, is impossible using only official data.

There is no shortage of market research companies providing estimates of the number of Americans online. The problem is that few of them agree. A review of data from five different organizations gives the number of Internet users aged 18 and over as between 109 – 151 million for penetration rates ranging from 50.1% to 69.4% of the adult population. This would place the US anywhere from 5th to 16th in world rankings of Internet penetration. Apart from the lack of agreement on the number of users, another shortcoming with the non-official data is that the methodology is not always clear. A further issue is that most of the surveys only capture adult Internet use. Teens tend to be among the most active online and some countries have revised surveys to include this important segment. Indeed, the Bureau of Census surveys include those from age three. The drawback of not including younger users is that the survey base is often divided by the total population when making global comparisons. Thus, the US data would only include adults users divided by the entire population, resulting in a lower penetration rate.

A more globally comparable time series for US Internet penetration is needed. The Bureau of Census publishes extracts from Mediamark Research, Inc. Internet surveys in order to provide more up-to-date data (albeit only covering those over 18 years). This data has been adjusted to include estimates of those aged 3-17 years who are online, based on the 2001 Bureau of Census data. The result is an estimated 167 million Internet users in the US three years and older for 2003 or 57.4% of the total population. One of the striking aspects of the US data is the rapid jump in 2001, a growth rate of 16.9% over the previous year. Since then, growth has declined dramatically with the number of Internet users in the US only rising 1.7% in 2003.

Top SMS countries, 2003

2004-10-26T02:09:00.001-04:00

The background for this chart stems from an April 2004 article stating that Germans led the world in SMS usage in 2003 (See "Germans are world SMS champions"). None of the statistics in the article were correct. For example, the article stated that Germans--who are not even ranked in the top ten by the number of SMS sent per subscriber per month--led the world by sending 200 million SMS a year. This is less than 1 SMS per subscriber per month and is clearly wrong. The German telecom regulator reported that Germans sent 20 billion SMS in 2003, or some 27 per subscriber per month. This only ranks Germany number 22, far behind the Philippines, where the average mobile subscriber sends some 200 text messages a month ranking that country tops in the world. This rectifies an earlier misunderstanding in the Asia Pacific Mobile Multimedia Outlook report where Singapore had been ranked ahead of the Philippines. This was picked up by one news article Tops in text: Singaporeans edge Pinoys. It turns out that the Singaporean data included both SMS sent and received. The data are now correct in the chart to show only sent text messages.

Korea in Translation: Lost in the Asian Cyber World

2004-09-12T02:13:00.001-04:00

Hanaro Telecom stand, ITU Telecom Asia

Like the character Bill Murray plays in the film “Lost in Translation”, I feel a bit disoriented visiting the ITU Telecom Asia show in Busan, Republic of Korea. First of all, I am not even sure what the city is called. Some people call it Busan, others Pusan. Even my hotel seems inconsistent. The sign outside says Busan Lotte Hotel whereas the stationary in the desk calls it the Hotel Lotte Pusan.

The show is at the Busan Exposition Centre (BEXCO), anywhere from 20 minutes to one hour from the hotel depending on the traffic. Even though it is supposed to be regional, a lot of the stands have information only in Korean and a lot of the staff only speak Korean. Some of the wares seem strange—mobile phones with cartoon characters that act as your agent or a phone that recognizes your finger prints, allowing you assign different people to call to each finger—just imagine who you could assign the middle ones to. Talking about cartoon characters, one of the most popular stands was that of Hanaro Telecom—a Korean broadband operator. There was a constant line of people waiting to have their picture taken with what I think was some kind of chipmunk and a penguin; I obliged of course. At the SK Telecom stand, break dancers and rap singers attracted a constant crowd. Combined with a massive case of jet lag after a 14 hour daylight flight from Washington DC, I feel lost in all of this.

This place is rife with contradictions. Korea is the world’s broadband leader yet large parts of it remain inoperative to Westerners or even anyone non-Korean. I’ve had loads of difficulties printing documents from PCs that display only Han (the Korean alphabet). I’ve waded through Korean Power Point relying on memory to navigate menus. I end up with printouts that have elements displaced—background shows up on one slide and the foreground on another. My hotel room is the first I’ve had with a PC but the system to access the Internet is unfathomable and I had to call for help to establish a Wi-Fi connection.

I guess this is how people must feel that have had to use computers and the Internet in English for so many years. But the more I think about it, this is one reason why the Republic of Korea is so far ahead in information and communication technology. It has successfully adapted information technology to its environment so that understanding English is no longer a barrier. This is a lesson more countries need to learn if they are to successfully join the digital world.

ITU Telecom Asia, 7-11 September, Busan-Republic of Korea

High-speed mobile in Asia-Pacific

2004-09-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

http://reports.tmgtelecom.com/apmmo/

ITU: Most wired countries in the world

2003-11-19T21:34:00.000-05:00

ITU: Most wired countries in the world by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- Sweden came in first in the Digital Access Index, followed by Denmark and Iceland, while Norway was fifth, said the International Telecommunications Union. South Korea, world leader in high-speed “broadband” access, came in fourth. Filling out the top 10 in order were the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland, Taiwan and Canada. The United States was 11th, [...]

Broadband as Commodity

2002-12-03T02:14:00.000-05:00

This shot was taken in front of the Wanchai Computer Center—a big shopping mall devoted to selling computers and accessories. Taken with natural light, the blur emphasizes the frenetic buzz of the hawkers pushing broadband services. These street vendors could just as easily been selling apples or oranges, emphasizing the point to which broadband has become a commodity in Hong Kong. The right sign shows the various flavors available from one operator—1.5Mbps, 3Mbps or 6Mbps...almost two years later, I was only getting around 491 kbps down & 131 kbps up in the USA and paying US$ 30 a month; higher speeds were not available for a residential connection. At the time this photo was taken, a 1.5 Mbps plan was HK$ 156 (US$ 20) per month. See "Broadband as Commodity: Hong Kong, China Case Study" and the presentation at the ITU Promoting Broadband Workshop.

"At current trends, virtually all of Hong Kong’s internet subscriptions will be broadband by the year 2005. Hong Kong’s broadband internet access pricing has recently become among the cheapest in the region. It is unlikely that there is this degree of broadband competition anywhere else in the world.”

South China Morning Post, 14 July 2003

From Mechanics to Web Designers: Sunrin Internet High School

2002-05-01T02:29:00.000-04:00

Web site: www.sunrint.hs.kr

Photos: http://community.webshots.com/album/39366201tduiRv

Located down a narrow street in a quiet section of central Seoul, the Sunrin Internet High School is identified by a large gray stone marker. The stone harks back to traditional Korea, with its elegant characters written in the country’s Hangul alphabet. But what is going on in the school is definitely the future. Although all of Korea’s primary and secondary schools have computers and Internet connections (the latter accomplished in December 2000), Sunrin is different in that the high school has been designated as Seoul’s only Internet high school (two years ago) and only one of two in the country.

Sunrin has traditionally been noted for its quality of its instruction (as well as its baseball team). It has around 1’000 students and 80 teachers. School hours are 8:30 – 3:30 pm but some students are so hooked they stay until 10 pm. Sunrin is a senior high school, roughly equivalent to grades 10-12 in a western school with students aged 16-18. Like at all Korean schools, the students wear uniforms that vary by age and sex.

There are over 600 PCs and 16 PC Labs, many with the latest equipment. Most PCs are Samsung brand, manufactured by Korea’s largest electronics company. The school has two E1 (2.048 Mbps) lines for Internet access paid by the government; much faster than the normal 256 kbps for schools the government provides.

It is still too early to tell what kinds of jobs the students will get since the first batch has not yet graduated. There is job training through cooperation with industry and some students are already doing business on the side. It was noted that the Internet allows a student’s web site, if well done, to be indistinguishable from those of large companies.

Before learning focused on text but now includes images and sounds. Movement, sound, and design are important at the school since they form part of the new digital content. Sunrin is also big on music and there is a lab with equipment for experimenting with digital sounds. The advantage is that you do not have to have the actual instrument, allowing many more students to participate in learning music. Students make their own music, including adding soundtracks to videos they have created. Content development is also taught. For example students study Japanese Manga cartoons for insight into graphical design.

There are plans to create a cyber library. It is expected that in the future students will not need to bring text books since digital version will be available on the school web site. Other schools could also download the textbook authored by Sunrin teachers, a pretty prolific lot that have already written 15.

Sunrin, a traditional vocational school, was selected as an Internet school because of the enthusiasm of the principal and teachers. According to the principal, a traditional vocational school is useless in today’s increasingly information-driven society. Information Technology (IT) is not entirely new at Sunrin, which introduced an Apple Macintosh in 1979 and incorporated computers into the curriculum in 1982.

Teachers are taught IT skills at a private academy funded by the Ministry of Information and Communication. All teachers have their own PC and Internet access.

Computer training is divided into four departments: Internet Information Communication, Web-Managing, Electronic Commerce and Multi-Media Design. Classes range from Unix to learning Web design. Students also take four hours of English a week. In addition, there are extra non-IT courses to compensate for too much exposure to computers.

An interesting example of the multimedia approach is a math class that uses an electronic chalkboard to teach students how to program Eratosthenes Sieve, an algorithm for identifying prime numbers. Thus students learn math and computer programming as well as some English, killing three birds at once.

A Women-operated Telecentre in Cape Verde

2002-04-01T02:33:00.000-05:00

From the outside, the Telecentro Comuntario de Assomada does not look like an Internet café. It is a nondescript ochre colored building that looks like it could be a storage shed or somebody’s house. Paper posters advertising the telecentre keep on getting blown away in the steady wind so the staff is thinking about a more permanent neon sign. The telecentre is located in the town of Santa Catarina, the second largest on the island of Sao Tiago, Cape Verde with a population of 42’000. A US$ 50’000 project of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, www.itu.int) and Cabo Verde Telecom (CVT, www.nave.cv), the incumbent telephone company, the telecentre opened in May 2001. CVT is providing 50 per cent discount on telecommunication and Internet access during the first year. The telecentre has a 64 kbps ISDN connection to the Internet.

Members of the some 3’000 strong Women’s Association of Santa Catarina, operate the telecentre. Two people staff it during working hours, 8 am – 10 pm daily except Sundays. The only male involved in the operations is the guard. Services available include recharge of mobile prepaid cards, purchase of telephone calling cards, public phone calls, Internet access, PC applications, photocopying, printing, and fax. Drinks and light snacks are also available. The price of Internet access is 150 Cape Verde Escudos per hour (US$ 1.25), less expensive than at the other two Internet cafes in town.

Clients of the five PC telecentre include students and professors from a nearby school as well as residents of the local community. There are around 60 users per day each using it on average of half hour. There is an extra table for people to wait, as the telecentre tends to get crowded during peak times.

PC and Internet access training for women is in the pipeline. There is also a plan to introduce an e-commerce component to sell handicrafts made by local women. This would include digitizing the products and displaying them on a web site.

Desert, goats and an IT Park in Oman

2001-06-01T02:36:00.002-04:00

The Sultanate of Oman, with a land area of just over 300'000 square kilometers, is the third largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. Over 80 per cent of Oman's territory is desert but it contains large reserves of oil and natural gas. Oil-related activities account for almost 40 per cent of the country's GDP and have contributed strongly to economic development. Nonetheless, over half of Oman's population is still involved in agricultural activities. This becomes apparent once outside the more developed part of the country centered around the capital, Muscat. About an hour away from the capital, goats seem to outnumber people.

Over 80 per cent of Oman's territory is desert.

One of Oman's some 700'000 goats. In rural areas, goats seem to outnumber people. More than half of Oman's population is engaged in agricultural activities.

Until the recent rise, stagnation in oil prices had led to a fall in per capita income, pointing out the danger of over reliance on a single commodity. The government is thus keen to diversify the economy. Its Oman 2020 vision calls for increasing the role of other sectors. It is hoped that, by 2020, the contribution of crude oil to GDP will be less than ten per cent.

A step in that direction has been the creation of economic zones-called Industrial Estates-that clusters primarily manufacturing companies together. Six Industrial Estates have been created that offer some 200 companies a comprehensive package of incentives such as tax breaks and subsidized rentals. In addition, transport and communications infrastructure and facilities such as schools and shops are also provided in the Industrial Estates. The Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE) is the government-owned agency that manages Industrial Estates.

Recognizing the growing role of Information Technology (IT) in both manufacturing as well as an industry in its own right, the government has plans to create an IT Park designed along the model of the Industrial Estates. Indeed, PEIE has taken the lead role in drawing up the plans for the IT Park, based on a United Nations for Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) study. The design of the IT Park has been completed and ground breaking is scheduled for September 2001. It will be ready for tenants by July 2002.

The IT Park is to be located three kilometers from Rusayl (location of the largest Industrial Estate containing the biggest conglomeration of companies in Oman) and only ten minutes from Seeb International Airport. Covering some 300'000 square meters, the IT Park is divided into three parts: offices for software companies; a training center including an IT college (to be built by the private sector); and services such as shopping, a food court, health club, etc.

Oman's location-just across the Arabian Sea from India, next door to the other Gulf States, and close to the Horn of Africa-plays an important role. One objective of PEIE is to attract companies who want a gateway to East Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Yemen. It is hoped that the brand recognition of Omani products-for example the most famous milk powder in Sudan comes from Oman-and a reputation for quality will help software exports. Another plus is language; most Omanis speak both Arabic and English. The large number of expatriates and closeness to Iran and India also means that significant portions of Oman's inhabitants are also familiar with Farsi and Hindi.

The Sultanate's closeness to India is evident from the large number of Indian workers. India's success in developing its own software industry has had an influence on Oman's IT Park and Omani officials have visited Indian software parks and obtained ideas. In fact, a team of Bangalore-based Indian architects designed the sleek, glassy, 3-story multi-domed IT Park.

Developing the needed human resource skills for the IT Park will be crucial to its success. One factor that should help is that the IT Park is just 1.5 kilometers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman's only public institute of higher education. SQU offers degrees in Information Systems and Information Engineering. To ensure a steady supply of programmers, an Omani-Indian company plans to establish a university-the Middle East College of Information Technology-in the heart of the IT Park. This private-sector initiative will offer Omanis and other Gulf students a bachelor's degree. Plans are to open in September 2002 with an intake of 500 students.

Headquarters of Oman Telecommunication Company. OmanTel will be responsible for providing the communications infrastructure of the IT Park

The IT Park will have state-of-the-art communication infrastructure most of which will be provided by the state-owned telecom company, OmanTel. Fiber optic cable will extend up to the IT Park (the availability of fiber will be no problem since the only fiber optic cable plant in the Middle East is located at Rusayl). The IT Park will have its own 1'000 line telephone exchange. It is planned to provide 155 Mbps of bandwidth to the desktop over the IT Park's Local Area Network. Just in case, there will be a powerful uninterruptible power supply.

Oman first connected to the Internet in January 1997 with an initial one Mbps link. As of May 2001, international connectivity stood at almost 30 Mbps. There are 33'000 Internet subscribers or almost 100'000 users in the country (just over 4% of the population). One barrier is the shortage of PCs in homes. Although over half of Omani homes have a telephone line, less than 10% have a PC. OmanTel is launching a program to facilitate the purchase of home PCs. Other goals include raising the level of Internet access in schools and providing broadband local access.

Incentives for companies locating at the IT Park will be similar to those for the Industrial Estates. These include tax holidays, exemptions on import duties, subsidized rent, visa facilitation for expatriates, clearances and 100 per cent foreign investment. In addition, some special inducements for the IT Park include an initial lowering of the cap for Omani employees (normally 35%, reduced to 10% for the IT Park) and discounts on network access. Nonetheless it is hoped that the IT Park will create employment for IT skilled Omani nationals as well as serve as an incubator for Omani dot.com start-ups. Tele-working is another possibility as there is a large number of highly educated Omani women who are potential employees but who would prefer to work from home.

A major goal of the IT Park is to develop software for export. This includes customizing applications for the regional market and Arabizing software. There are already some precedents in this area. For example, Medicom, an Indian-Oman medical software company, has exported its hospital management system to South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and India. There is also expected to be a lot of work developing local applications. For example, there is an Omani e-government committee chaired by the Minister of National Economy, which is expected to propose a number of projects. Another area is education where the Ministry of Education has proposed the development of a student database.