Central Asia + Information and Communication Technologies

Almaty Students Request Free Internet Access at Universities

Activists of social movement Alliance of Kazakhstan Students surveyed about 4.5 thousand students in state and private universities of Almaty on the question of Internet access at their higher learning institutes. The survey data shows that only 3% of Kazakhstan students use Internet at Universities for free; every second student does not use Internet at all or uses very rarely; and in the regions this number is significantly lower. Almost all private universities do not provide Internet access at all, and even though state schools receive state budget financing, almost none of them provide free access to Internet. 97% of students need to pay to access Internet at Universities. Activists request that each student receives at least 2-3 hours of free Internet access a week. They argue that since students are paying for their education, access to Internet services should be considered included in tuition. Source: CNews, 05/13/2008. Link to article in Russian: http://www.cnews.kz/news/top/index.shtml?2008/05/13/106978

Expanding Cellular Market in Turkmenistan

MTS - Russian mobile network company intends to invest in Turkmenistan $150 mln. In the next three years. The company also plans to send a group of Turkmen IT students for training to major Russian universities. MTS is the leading mobile network operator in Turkmen mobile phone market with the share of 85% in 2008. The number of users for May 2008 is 500 thousand people. Source: CNews, 05/14/2008, Link to article in Russian: http://www.cnews.kz/news/line/index.shtml?2008/05/14/106991

Izzdek for Kaznet

The author assesses that launching Kazakhstan national Internet search engine in the .KZ domain is a timely project, as the two main groups that have demand for it: users and advertisers, are ready for this innovative tool in Kazakhstan. He also argues that the comparative advantage of such a search engine to Yandex or Goodgle? would be that it will reflect the unique characteristics of Kaznet. For example, Yandex cannot search in Kazakh language, Google? Does not know what is Kaznet. It only recognizes websites in .KZ domain, without considering morphological and semantic components of sites in various languages. As a result, it is impossible to get complete findings for requests and be certain that it is relevant for Kaznet. Moreover, local system has an advantage to have higher rates of updates; low number of websites will help categorize them and complete a search with many parameters (government, commercial, information websites, etc.). Source: CNews, 04/21/2008. Link to article in Russian: http://www.cnews.kz/reviews/index.shtml?2008/04/21/106431_1

UN Launches New Training Course to Help Asian Developing Countries Use ICT

On 5-10 May 2008, representatives of national ICT ministries and ICT training institutions from five Central Asian states together with Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Mongolia gathered in Incheon, Republic of Korea to participate in a sub-regional training of trainers workshop on ICT Essentials for Government Leaders. Workshop covered the following topics: ICT Trends for Government Leaders, Internet Governance, Network and Information Security and Privacy. It is part of the initiative, called the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders - A Modular Training Programme, is undertaken by the United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT). APCICT aims to equip policy makers and government officials with the essential knowledge and skills they need to fully leverage upon opportunities presented by ICTs to achieve national development goals. Learn more about this initiative at: http://www.unapcict.org/ Source: UNESCO, 05/05/2008. Link to article: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26748&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Presidents Web Access Calls go Ignored

Anyone thought to be using the internet in Turkmenistan is under surveillance, and web traffic was being 'carefully filtered'. Nevertheless, a specialist with Turkmentelekom, the state monopoly provider, says the number of applicants for a connection is 'growing steadily'. In the capital Ashgabat, more than six thousand applications were received. He added that each application is scrutinized on an individual basis. The article implies that Internet restrictions are linked to the weak power of the new president Berdymuhammedov. Despite president’s repeated emphasis on improving access to the internet, and orders for all new buildings to be fitted with modern multimedia technology, with the internet to be available even in kindergartens, things have recently deteriorated, with more sites blocked than usual and service generally slower. Users found they were unable to access any of the popular Central Asian or foreign websites. As a result, ten or so new internet cafes opened around the country, but few people used them as they cost a lot by local standards, and ID has to be shown to use them. One of these issues is being addressed – from May 1, the hourly fee was cut from 60 to 30 manats (from five to 2.5 US dollars). In late March, Turkmenistan was branded an enemy of the internet by the international watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Source: IWPR, 05/08/08 Link to article:http://www.iwpr.net/?p=btm&s=b&o=344529&apc_state=henb

Launching SMS-Banking in Central Asia

Mobile operator NEO and Kazkommertsbank announced launching of SMS-Banking service in Kazakhstan. The clients of NEO will be able to check their account balance at Kazkommertsbank through special account-cards using a mobile phone. SMS-Banking includes two services: 1) Active Service and 2) SMS-alert + Active Services. The service will allow the clients to control the money transactions through their account-cards at anytime, regardless of their location, sending requests and receiving sms-messages to their mobile phones. In addition the 'Active Service' plan allows the users to block the card in case of its loss/theft or unsanctioned access to the account-card. The second plan also includes an option to receive information about all transactions in an automated mode. Similar service was offered by Hamkorbank in Uzbekistan earlier this month. Today, Hamkorbank offers several plans using ICT for its clients: Internet-banking, E-mail-banking. Last year there were 60 users of these services; the number reached 550 in 2008. Source: Computer Club, 05/08/2008. Link to article: http://www.ccm.kz/

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5.16.2008