Page 87 - Cyberculture and New Media

78 On the Way to the Cyber-Arab-Culture
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control. In its continuing attempts to attract more foreign investment, the
Lebanese government is considering privatizing some public services. The
Lebanese political establishment has generally been against wide-scale
privatization, but economic pressure could breach that political obstacle and
lead to an increasing role for the private sector in the economy. The Algerian
officials dealing with privatization issues increasingly target foreign
investors, who for a long period were prevented from entering the country’s
private-sector market. Despite continued fears over job losses, the
privatization of a number of companies in Jordan has been carried out since
2000; 40% of the Jordan Telecommunications Company was sold for over
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US$500 million.
There are numerous Internet service providers (ISP) in operation in
Arab countries providing several services such as dial-up, ISDN, leased,
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ADSL, Web hosting, and e-mail services. Egypt has the largest number of
Internet service providers, while a notable number of Arab countries have
only one Internet service provider in operation. Monopolies in the Internet
market raise the cost of an Internet connection in most Arab countries, and to
some extent contribute to a deterioration of the service. For political reasons,
most Arab governments try to create a monopoly in the ISP market by
preventing new firms from entering the market (e.g. by controlling licenses).
Another reason Internet costs are high and connection speeds low in Arab
countries is that Internet service providers are not allowed to provide their
own international gateways. In most Arab countries, the total cost of Internet
access is way beyond the purchasing power of average citizens, especially
when adding the high cost of making local calls to the cost of an ISP
connection. For example, in Saudi Arabia, local calls cost three times as
much as the cost of an ISP connection. Only individuals living in Kuwait and
the United Arab Emirates can obtain access to the Internet for less than
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US$20 per month.
Recently, there has been a “rapid growth in Internet subscriptions in
the majority of Arab countries as the cost of connections came down and the
number of Arabic-language websites increased. But overall Internet
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penetration remained very limited.” There is a huge digital divide between
the Arab world and the world as a whole, in terms of Internet usage in
proportion to population. The entire Arab-world percentage of world Internet
usage is only 1.9%. That is, among the more than 316 million Arab peoples
(4.9% of the world population) in twenty-two countries, only 19 million have
access to the Internet, with a penetration rate (6.1%) much less than the world
average penetration rate (15.7%). Arab countries with the highest rates of
Internet access are Egypt (0.489%), Morocco (0.342%), and Saudi Arabia
(0.248%), while those with the lowest rates are Comoros (0.001%), Djibouti
(0.001%), and Mauritania (0.001%). However, the Arab countries with the
highest percentages of Internet access do not have the highest penetration