Living in an Information Society
The IT market proposes an action program for the president
“It will only be possible to create an information society in Ukraine if business, the government, and the public unite their efforts,” Andriy Kolodiuk, president of the Information Society of Ukraine Foundation, told a telecommunications forum the other day. He said this could not be achieved in the recent past because government and business failed to reach a consensus. The time for qualitative changes has arrived, and Ukraine now has a real opportunity to become a leader in building an information society in Eastern and Central Europe. “This confidence is based on the existing achievements of non-governmental organizations. All we need is political will and state support,” Mr. Kolodiuk noted.
Although we are not really starting from scratch, there is still a huge amount of work to be done. This is the conclusion of a lengthy report submitted to the President of Ukraine, called “On Urgent Measures to Develop an Information Society in Ukraine,” which was prepared for the forum by associations of information and communication technology businesses and various civic organizations. The report proposes such urgent measures as mapping out by June 1 of this year a national strategy for building an information society in Ukraine and submitting an action plan to the Verkhovna Rada to implement this strategy by November 1. According to Oleksandr Baranov, member of the VR’s Information Advisory Council, this work should be carried out by a central executive body that will be empowered to build an information society in Ukraine. To streamline legislation on the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), market experts have suggested that, following a public debate, the Cabinet of Ministers should draw up and submit to parliament an Information Code, a corpus juris for an information society.
An information society is a civil society built with the aid of ICT, at the heart of which is information and equal access to it for all citizens. Meanwhile, Ukraine ranks second to last in the European index of access to the Internet, with only 1% of Ukrainian schools using the Web. The report suggests establishing a wide network of collective Internet access facilities with the aid of non-governmental investments in schools, computer classes, etc., and setting a goal to achieve at least a 40-% level of public access to the Internet in the next few years.
According to the rating list published by the International Telecommunications Union’s, Ukraine ranks 100th in the per capita number of personal computers: fewer than 20 per 1,000 inhabitants. Experts predict that 1 million PCs will be sold by the end of 2005, which will bring the total number of PCs to nearly 3 million. However, given the population’s real incomes, it is unlikely that every household will be able to afford a computer in the foreseeable future. Therefore, to increase the number of home-based personal computers, the authors of the report suggest that the cost of PCs and software bought for personal use be included in the tax credit, come income tax time.
In Ukraine, only 2% of the radio frequency range is set aside for commercial use, while in developed market-economy countries this index exceeds 50%. The discrepancy between the frequency plans of Ukraine and the European Union prevents the application of European technological achievements in wireless communication. The report urges that Ukraine’s radio frequency resource be utilized as fully and as effectively as possible.
To establish a civilized telecommunications market, new life has to be breathed into the National Telecommunications Regulation Commission (NTRC). Tetiana Popova, chairperson of the Internet Association of Ukraine, noted that the recent founding of the NTRC shows that the backstage appointment of cronies is not only an unfair practice but also an inadmissible one, especially where the formation of an independent state regulation body is concerned. In her view, the NTRC should meet the following requirements: it must enjoy the market’s confidence and should not be created just to cater to a certain influential person or group of individuals who have personal business interests in the IT industry. Commission members must also have irreproachable personal qualities, above all honesty and professionalism, while all appointments should be transparent. According to Oleksandr Baranov, the creation of the NTRC should result in 100-% public access to universal services, including the Internet, complete digitization of telecommunications networks, introduction of digital television, conversion of the radio frequency resource in the interests of civilian users, and wide- scale implementation of broadband information transfer technologies.
The catch phrase “Data, not individuals, should do the running” was heard frequently at the forum. This idea was interpreted in a slightly different fashion in a speech given by Elina Shnurko-Tabakova, chair of the IT Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce. Her data show that the high-tech market of Ukraine topped $5 billion in 2004, with hardware and integrated solutions accounting for $1 billion (20% of the entire market), software generated $100 million, and electronic communications facilities, over $4 billion. In her view, it is significant that 60% of the companies playing on the market (in private ownership) deal with hardware, while 6% of companies that account for 70% of the market’s money turnover furnish all kinds of telecommunications. The telecommunications sector is the largest consumer of investments. Ms. Shnurko-Tabakova thinks this is the wrong approach. “Deploying communication channels does not mean building an information society. The governmental policies of the past few years have often mixed up these two ideas. Communication is transportation of data, no more and no less than that.”
The March forum, “Information Society of Ukraine,” differed positively from the last one in that proposals from players in the telecommunications market were not confined to the corporate environment. This time they were also heard by Yevhen Chervonenko, Minister of Transport and Communications of Ukraine, who listened to every speech with genuine interest. The minister, who appeared to be very open, promised that from now on the rules of the market game would be the same for everyone. “Gone are the days of privileges for certain large companies that represented individuals and clans,” he said. The minister stressed that his ministry has assigned itself the task of making ICT development one of the five topmost priorities in the government’s policy.
