Computerization
Last week, I watched ‘How Personal Computers Work,’ an Information Technology training program broadcasted on TVK channel (National Television Kampuchea). In the video playback, a young Japanese woman introduces a middle-aged man to the way today computer works. It highlights some picture of the computer hardwares and how an Operating System empowers the machine, and presents it in a non-technical way to help novice users. The conversation, originally spoken in Japanese language, was translated into Khmer with no difficulty to understand. At the end of the session, it says: Courtesy of Japanese Government.
It was a decade back when I first learned how to use computer. I didn’t have my own computer; it was a belonging of my teacher of English, who lived next door. The machine, probably one left by the UNTAC, run on Windows 3.0, an early version of Microsoft Operating System. It’s quite fascinating to look back. Only some photocopied of documents about how to work with computer, written in Khmer by some Cambodian computer specialists, were made available. It was a couple of years later that I could connect to the Internet using Dial-up connection. The world was greater that I knew; a lot of great resources. These days, people have a lot of good materials to learn, one of which is this interactive multimedia that walk them through any topics. Plus, they don’t have to spend a lot of time waiting when surfing the Web as I did using the 1990s connection, one that ran over telephone line. Online (first known as Telstra Bigpond, Australia’s largest Internet service provider), one of many Internet Service Providers, currently offer a wide range of solutions, from DSL, a family of technologies that provide digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network, to WiMax, a telecommunications technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways, not to talk about fiber-optic cables, which I’ve lately heard of.
Like in many other developing countries, telecommunication industry is a big business. Let’s take a look at Africa (and Afghanistan, perhaps), where mobile phone industry is very successful. There are at least six major Internet Service Providers providing a wide ranges of services to business and aid agencies. Other than Online the ISP, some Internet users can look for other option, mainly based on price. This comes the like CityLink, AngkorNet, CaminTel, teleSURF, and CamNet. In the last decade, the Internet users were charged based on their duration of the access. It changed almost completely; today you have to pay as you go. The more amount of data transfer (bandwidth) you use over the Internet, the more you have to pay. To use unlimited bandwidth at the speed of 512 KB, you have to pay nearly US$1K per month.
Bill Gates should have been happy with what he envisioned: helping put a computer on every desk and in every home. The next big thing to see in Cambodia is: the Internet to every home. This will happen as long as a large population of Cambodians are computer literate. Once people are aware of the tool in which they will use to enhance the way they live and work, a new demand will grow, which is a driving force for a new war of providing competitive Internet service to home users, probably the largest segment of the market.
Not surprisingly, about six months after the new millennium the country established an institution to formulate Information Technology promotion and development policy for the short, medium and long term, as well as to in charge of IT policy implementation to ensure maximum economic growth. The National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (alias NiDA) envisioned that
“Cambodia would like to fully reclaim its destiny, to be a real partner in regional and global affairs and be well on its way to becoming a truly free nation - free from war and poverty above all else.”
Tharum,
How much is unlimited? Is that $1,000 per month or year?
That’s one month beth.
That is a little too expensive. How does this compare to our neighboring countries, like Thailand or Vietnam? Any idea?
As for internet in Japan, it is surprisingly cheap. I pay only $25 a month for the plan I’m currently using. It’s a fiber-optic service with unlimited download. Also, the first two-month is free of charge.
Whenever I think about this, I keep asking myself when Cambodia will have such a low-priced internet service, and which is affordable for most households in the country.
I think the Internet development in Cambodia is not far different from any other countries in the world, including the U.S. Before having to pay for unlimited bandwidth per month at an affordable price by individual users, the Americans, probably in the past decade, also had to start with what Cambodians facing today. Nobody is interested in building some expensive infrastructure project when there is still little demand.
Seserak, since you’ve come up with the case of Japan, it might be a good idea to look into a few other developing nations, where people still have to catch up with the rest of the world. So we’ll be able to tell the differences of the progress.