• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
 
 
Macedonia seeks an affordable way to log on
By Nicholas Wood The New York Times
TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2006
KANATLARCI, Macedonia
Thirteen-year-old Nustreta Mimovic's handtrembled as she placed it over the computer mouse. Slowly she dragged themouse and watched the screen as her fellow students looked on."I'd love to know how to use it, but I don't have a computer," she said, giving up the controls to anotherpupil.Nustreta's unfamiliarity with technology is common in Macedonia, a poor republic where it is estimatedthat as little as 4 percent of its two million citizens have regular access to computers and the Internet. Within a year, if the government has its way, those figures could be turned around with the creation ofa wireless Internet network covering the entire country.Supporters said the network, which already has been installed in some schools, will deliver more than
Page 1of 3Macedonia seeks an affordable way to log on -Print Version -International Herald Tribune4/4/2006http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/04/03/yourmoney/macedonia.php
 
 just a means of mass communication. They hope it will provide opportunities to ordinary people,students and businesspeople in communities like Kanatlarci, one of hundreds of remote villages.Government officials have said they believe affordable access to the Internet could help transform amoribund economy, but that is proving difficult to achieve.The cost of going online with the country's main service provider is prohibitively expensive - about$1.30 an hour for a dial-up connection, a substantial sum in villages like this one, where workers earnan average of $150 a month, mainly through agriculture. The cost of a broadband connection isbeyond most people's dreams at $45 a month for the most basic service.The source of the problem, representatives of service providers and technology-based businessessaid, is that access to the Internet is dominated by the country's main telecommunications company,Makedonski Telekomunikacii, known as Maktel.Formerly a state-owned monopoly, Maktel now is partly privatized, with 51 percent owned by MagyarTelekom, the Hungarian subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.Maktel users said that, while they depend on the company, they believe it is stifling competition tomaintain its substantial profits.It is a battle that can be seen throughout the developing world, and in some developed economies,too, where incumbent telecom operators, often state-owned, appear reluctant to allow competitionfrom rival Internet service providers, most notably with the arrival of low-priced phone calls made overthe Internet.In Macedonia's case, telecommunications analysts, including the industry's main regulator, said thegovernment's desire for fair competition also was being undermined by the substantial dividends -worth more than $51 million in 2004 - it receives from Maktel.While the possibilities offered by the Internet may seem remote to most of Macedonia's population, afast-growing technology industry based around the capital, Skopje, already has begun to show that jobs can come from outside agriculture or heavy industry, now the main sectors of employment.One company, FX3X, which does computer animation, worked on the Hollywood film "The Aviator.""Most people's dream is some form of job in an old-style communist industry or to be employed in astate bureaucracy where you might as well be retired as soon as you start work," said MilivojeGjorgjevic, the manager of FX3X. "We are creating a clean industry. It's changing the mind-set."Last year, the government introduced a law opening Internet access to increased competition, butInternet service providers still depended on Maktel for access to customers and said that reliancegave Maktel too much power over pricing.It was partly to avoid Maktel's costs that Macedonia's new wireless network was created.In a project called Macedonia Connects, the U.S. Agency for International Development paid $2.5million to provide 461 schools, including the one in Kanatlarci, with Internet access. The mostaffordable means was through a wireless network.The creation of the wireless network, the most affordable method, has shown than an alternative canexist independently of Maktel and offer substantially lower costs."One of the benefits of the Macedonia Connects project is that pricing for broadband connectivity wentfrom nearly €120 to €23 per month due to the creation of a separate networking infrastructurecompletely independent of Maktel," said Glenn Strachan, the director of Macedonia Connects. He saidMaktel had to cut its prices to compete.Susanna Karolyi, Maktel's communications director, said senior executives were unavailable forinterviews and disputed suggestions that the company was abusing its dominant role in themarketplace. "We work based on international professional standards and act in line with the localrules of this country," she wrote in an e-mail.
Page 2of 3Macedonia seeks an affordable way to log on -Print Version -International Herald Tribune4/4/2006http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/04/03/yourmoney/macedonia.php
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...