Window on the Internet in Yemen [Archives:2000/41/Culture]
Abdul-Hakim Hashim
Our world is distinguished owing to the huge increase of mental output that is difficult to grasp. It is also accompanied by a revolution in communication in this century embodying an excellent qualitative step of merging of computer technologies and telecommunications and the emergence of the Internet.
The idea of Internet was raised by the American Ministry of Defense that asked for connecting the computers to one another. Now the Internet connects millions of computers and telephone lines according to a protocol.
The Internet is a giant library containing all cultural, news, financial and business, entertainment information methods stored in a minute integrated way with the follow-up of changes and amendments on it.
it is not easy to understand the nature of the role the Internet plays unless we know the extent to which it interferes in the life of ordinary people. The information it provides become the main source most countries and establishments that depend upon it for making decisions. Thus, we can say that the Internet has become an industry and not a mere entertainment. Besides, the users of it are in millions. The figures indicate that 9 million women have joined the Internet. The latest calculations from the home job offices indicate that their number was 201 million in 98-99.
The information in Yemen indicate that the subscribers joined the Internet reached 4500. Whereas, the non-subscribers who use it are 7500. Therefore, the total number of the users is 12000. Furthermore, there are about 18 cafes for the Internet that offer this in Sanaa. These seem scant and so embarrassing compared to other countries for many reasons. And here we will try to approach this issue by interviewing the concerned people; users ; cafe owners and others.
At first we talked to the Internet cafe owners among whom was Mr. Mohammed Alnahari, Supervisor of the Internet Service in the University Center. He said, The number of people joining the Internet Service is increasing every day. Men are more than women who I can say constitute 2% only of the total users. Most users are not Yemenis and are students and those interested. The most desired subjects are Electronic-Mail, Entertainment, for example conversing through the Internet. Of late some merchants came asking for business facilities like searching for agencies or conversing with main companies. The scientific subjects are a few. We charge 5 rials per minute and the monthly average of users is 200.
As for control, the Tel-Yemen Company covers these sites but there are still open sites and we send their addresses to the Company to decide. The most important difficulties is the monopoly of this service by one company and that there is no competition. Thus, you will find service is slow and weak beside its extremely high price. Most of our problems are with the users because of slowness or the cut-offs on our account.
While we were present at the Superphone Center, we witnessed a breakdown in the arrival of Internet service and the owner of the Center/ Mohammed Naser Mohammed talked to us in an interesting and elaborate way. He said, People get more and more interested in the Internet. Yemenis are very few in comparison to foreigners and the number of women is even smaller. We have 55 male opposite 4 female users, mostly students, Internet lovers, and I estimate that 10% of them are University doctors.
The favored subjects are the Electronic Mail, Conversing. The fees we charge are YR. 300 per hour for the ordinary subscriber and for others YR. 130 . 50% of our users, numbering about 30, have subscriptions.
He added, This service depends on two things: the cost and the way it is available. The cost is high in comparison to the income of the Yemeni individual and also to the cost in other foreign countries. For a Yemeni spends YR. 1500 a month while a foreigner here spends YR. 15000. The TeleYemen Company charges 300 Rials, whereas, the Communications charges 175 rials per hour and if we compare this to the rest of other foreign and neighboring countries for example, we find that in Sudan the charge per hour ,from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., is 400 Sudanese pounds and from 6 p.m. to 12 p.m. is 300 Sudanese pounds and from 12 p.m. to 6 a.m. it is 200 Sudanese pounds ( a Yemeni Rial corresponds to 10 Sudanese Pound).While in Jordan the fee for one hour in the day is 1 Dinar and from 6 p.m. to 12 at night it is 35 Fils and the last part of the night is free. The Saudi Arabia offers the first three months free.
Now if you compare this to our price, you will find that ours is far more expensive than the others. Although we were the first country to introduce the services of the Mobile and the Internet, we are still behind, let alone the taxes and Customs which are 27% for computer sets compared to Jordan, that has fewer resources. He continues, In order to use this service you need a computer and a telephone line which are extremely expensive and thats why the number of users is small. The slow speed of this service makes it very expensive. For example the speed in Jordan is 124 kilobyte per second and in another country it is 128k/s. Promoting the Internet speed connection in the near future will be weak owing to the invalidity of the underground communication network. The Tel-Yemen Company announces the availability of the SSDN service but when we contact them they say it is unavailable. Anyway, even if such a service is available, it will be costly and consequently useless and I think the company cannot afford it. I wonder if there is control on this company, It may be the Ministry of Communications but I never feel it. We heard the contract of this company became invalid in 31/12/99 and was renewed for three or five years. The question is, Why was it renewed? It is not a fact that it improved in the service concerning performance or prices. Finally, I bring good news for the Internet fans is that we are on our way to establish an Internet Association in cooperation with the presenters of this service. It will help solving the service problems and to offer the best to our people, if the State permits it. We are also ready to largely invest in this field and provide many job opportunities at competitive prices even to neighboring countries.
Mr. Abdul-Qader Al-Rumaimah Supervisor of many centers says, that most of those cafes of centers are new and the services they offer are mail subscriptions, Internet researches, typing and translating into different languages. We instruct the customer to use computer and deal with the Internet and search for sites whether companies, universities or correspondence.
Mr. Areeb Abdul-Ghani, working for an oil company, says, I am a graduate in Computer Sciences from Iraq and I had extensive courses in English language. This makes it easy for me to enter into the Internet. I am planning to do my Master Degree through the Internet as I have many addresses of universities. Of course I have a computer at home and in the company. I consider the Internet a valuable service but I am annoyed by its slow speed, the disconnection and its high costs. For me it is very expensive but less expensive for those centers that make subscriptions and distribute them on many computers. I continuously use the Internet; Conversing, or E-
Mailing, or following up the scientific subjects relating to my specialization.
Labib Al-Tamimi, an Iraqi, said: I am good at English and this makes it easy for me to use the Internet and I have subscribed in one of the Internet cafes. I use the Internet from 30 to 40 hours a month and I pay 4000 – 5000 Rials. I follow many subjects relating to my specialization and also other subjects like the news, and political issues. I copy the long topics on a floppy disk so as to read them thoroughly at home as I have a computer. I hope increase in number in order to have competition between them offers the best for people. The service problems relate to the low speed of connection and the disconnection. So, first I identify the sites on a day and on the second day I enter into these sites and start scanning pages.
Kholood Fadhl Muhsen, an Intent specialist, said: Peoples interest in the Internet is small for many reasons. The first reason is the unawareness of the importance of this service and the great quality of information it offers and the benefits we can get at all levels whether cultural, economic or social. Another reason is that the cost of services is high because as the Internet connection is expensive for the ordinary individual, it is also expensive for companies. In other countries even the ordinary student can get an Intent connection. Regarding the Interment cafes, they should have a technical specialist who can instruct and help users get connected at a minimal price. The problem is that if an Internet cafe has one subscription then they distribute it on many computers. This makes the service slow as the connection speed in Yemen is very slow. Furthermore, the monopoly of this service by one company hinders us from competing in quantity and price. In Egypt alone there are 69 Internet companies. Therefore, I call upon allowing competition to take place for the benefit of ordinary people. And if the company that introduced this service claims that this will not be economically valid, it should quit and let other enterprises do it.
Finally, I consider that the problem of the Internet lies in the unawareness of this service and it can be solved by a little more effort.
To give the devil its due, Yemen Times went to the Tel-Yemen Company asking for answers to our questions but we were given a cold shoulder. After an effort, someone in the company who asked us not to mention his name, said to us: The weakness of the service may be attributed to the Internet cafes because some of them have one subscription and distribute it on many computer sets. This makes the service slow. We have many sorts of subscriptions. Although I am not involved in the Subscription Department, I can say we have a golden subscription of YR. 64500 monthly for 400 hours, another called subscription No. of YR. 4300 monthly for 200 hours, and another called subscription No. 3 of YR. 7200 for 30 hours. Finally, Yemen is the first country to introduce such services.
To conclude, the monopoly of this service by one company will logically result in these problems in the absence of control. This company will stand alone in the market and will profit away from satisfying the consumers needs. However, if there are other competitive companies, the consumer will have a easy access to better service at a low price. Yemen is working hard to join the World Trade Organization and the GATT Convention. This requires our country to have specialization in services, free opening of markets ruled by competition, and making the best use of the advantages of the information offered by the spidery web – the Internet.
——
[archive-e:41-v:2000-y:2000-d:2000-10-09-p:./2000/iss41/culture.htm]
