IT would never become the driver for economy until broadband fosters

High speed broadband Internet is the under-layer of IT. The writer discusses about the importance of broadband in our society and its role with regard to the development of the IT industry. In our country we are concerned about the development of the IT industry without knowing the facts and requirements.

Sanath Siriwardena

Internet technology is being here for quite a long time. Fair winds of information technology has blown across the island and enlightened our hearts with new hopes. We feel the breeze of information technology and smell the taste. We even touched the pulse of IT. But we could not recognise the rhythm. The expected benefits are about to vanish over the horizon like the setting Sun.

Therefore, we must make our plans before the next Sun shine and get the maximum of it before it hides over the horizon the next time. Fresh minds and new ideas would become handy at this crucial stage and that assures the anticipated economic and social benefits of information technology.

However, keeping the criticism at minimum, still recognising the mistakes we have done in the past we could build a more constructive gesture in Sri Lanka in the future. And that would be more productive in terms of delivering benefits of IT to the economy and to the society in short term. If we fail to identify the right module that suits us, soon we will lose the market competitiveness in this sector due to slowness of capturing industry oriented benefits. When IT is concerned, it recognises as fast moving industry change rapidly and continuously in a rhythmic way.

To be with this fast changing IT industry, country's IT initiatives must also move alone with the industry as it change. This synchronisation would be an essential to the growth of IT industry in any country and all efforts must be taken to maintain this relationship if we really need to make an IT oriented economy by the year 2010 in Sri Lanka.

International

For quite a long time Sri Lankans were actively involved in IT industry and we have carried out handful of projects throughout the history to uplift the standards of IT to compete with the International market. But no significant contribution has ever been made to our national economy despite all our efforts. So where have we gone wrong?

Sri Lanka would be one of the first countries to introduce IT in the region. IT had been added as a subject to the school curriculum expecting a wide spread of growth in IT industry in the country. Training programs and low cost computers were introduced to the teachers to increase the computer literacy among academic staffs. Similarly, parallel programs were also conducted to educate Government servants by introducing projects with the help of the Government.

We have taken a number of measures to bring the benefits of IT in to the country. The above examples are plenty for such and nobody was to blame. But until it contributes to our national economy with a significant rate of GDP rise; we assume that we haven't reached the intended goals. Similarly, no industry would be beneficial to the country until it produce mass benefits to the economy and to the society in the process of developing.

When we take IT, it consists of many things and none of them could be separated too easily. Among them, the place occupying by the Internet is remarkable. To be more precise, the Internet would be the driving force of IT that flourishes the growth than anything else. So the place occupied by the Internet is far more superior and IT industry cannot be sustained without the aid of the Internet.

Today the Internet has become an ordinary household service in every part of the world. Wide spread of Internet among people could bring a number of benefits in return.

Therefore developed countries are taking the lead by promoting the Internet growth in their societies assuring its economic remuneration to its people. The most intriguing discovery of wide-spread Internet is that the relationship it has with the rise of the GDP. This astonishing discovery pushes the world economies to deploy high speed Internet in every service that they provide to its citizens.

Since Internet works as the transport layer which carries the output of IT, the speed and the price of the Internet services would be regarded as the essence. When Sri Lankan Internet market is taken into consideration, some of these factors have actually prevented the country from achieving its economic goals in the past.

To overcome these deficiencies in the sector, the country's Internet penetration must be increased immediately by allowing all citizens to have fair access to the Information super highway. In this regard, every household in Sri Lanka must be provided with high speed broadband Internet services in the future. The state of art technology must be brought in to facilitate rural areas where normal Internet access would not be possible. Wireless and satellite technologies could be used in the backhaul when connecting isolated villages in remote parts of the island.

Investment

The right technology to be used in each and every case must be identified properly to keep the investment more meaningful and at the same time to minimise the CAPEX (capital expenditure) to achieve the expected benefits. Government should motivate operators to directly invest in these rural Internet projects by providing necessary financial facilities and grants. Tax incentives must be provided to operators at the initial stage until the operator recovered the cost of an investment.

Rural Internet infrastructure development would play an invaluable role in the economic growth. This allows entire rural community to offer mass scale contributions to the national economy in many ways. Farmers will get good values for their crop cultivations locally and internationally. This new international market will directly connects the buyer and the farmer in a virtual market environment by opening doors to new ventures. Elimination of middle parties between the buyer and the trader will increase the profits of both parties considerably. Quality of the cultivated crops would also be increases due to the latest techniques used in farming.

And what we should not forget is that the rural infrastructure development does not always mean the physical deployment of hardware such as laying cables and installing antennas. Providing affordable Internet, creating e-centres, making community awareness and other related administrative works are also regarded as rural Internet infrastructure development.

This rural Internet infrastructure development would directly contribute to the growth of national economy. Foreign investors will find it convenient and profitable to set up their factories in rural villages where labour is cheap and available. A widespread communication network throughout the country would facilitate BOP investors to set up new ventures outside Colombo assuring large scale benefits to the rural communities. Skills and knowledge of the citizens would uplifts due to the exposure of the information technology and that would be a priceless investment to the country in the long term.

All benefits and advantages we have discussed would be nothing more than fairy tales unless we unlock the features of high speed Internet and expose it right into the society. Even we could write more fairy tales, repeatedly discuss the benefits of Internet in open forums as a fashion. But nothing will happen for sure. Therefore the appropriate decisions must be taken to prioritise the rollout of broadband as a national task under the purview of the Government.

Transformation

Economic and social transformation wouldn't be possible with the existing broadband module in the country. The driving forces of the broadband; quality and the price lost its power because of regulatory vacuum prevail in the country. This situation badly affected the growth of Internet and its penetration.

Much of the benefits expected by users such as efficiency and speedy services incorporated in broadband could not be found in Sri Lankan broadband services. While other countries providing Megabit broadband services, operators in the country had managed to stage the drama using Kilobyte characters. Due to consumer unawareness and limited public exposure, the novel technologies would be a luxury for operators.

The disadvantage of the paltry broadband services could be more serious than we ever imagine. In Government's perspective this poorly regulated broadband service could be very expensive to its administration in the long term. What was expected for the country's economy by introducing broadband did not meet its goals in time.

Similarly, the society and the public never benefited by the broadband and these shortcomings would badly affect on the total productivity. Numerous other benefits of high speed Internet expected by the Government too has become ineffective due to inferior quality of broadband services.

Thus, the intended benefits of IT indefinitely delayed or slowed down in the country due to substandard expensive broadband services. This national crisis could only be averted through a strategic intervention of the Government. Therefore, it is very important to address these issues what we are facing today as obstacles to the growth of Internet, and to streamline them if we really need IT as a driver of the economy.

The information technology would vigorously prosper with the high speed broadband Internet. Promoting broadband Internet is more or less of a national task that Government should undertake. Virtues of IT cannot be extracted and delivered to the society until we facilitate the carrier that transports it. Until we provide such an environment, the Government, the economy and the citizens will have to compensate on behalf of expensive substandard broadband Internet services provided in the country. In this context, as we have stressed, the Government's role should not be delayed under any circumstances.