Algerian Internet service providers complain of sector's underdevelopment

26/09/2007

Algeria is lagging behind in making information available on the Internet. There are scarcely 5000 domain names in Algeria and only 200,000 ADSL subscribers.

By Lyes Aflou for Magharebia in Algiers –26/09/07

[Getty Images] Algeria's mobile telephone revolution has not been followed by an Internet revolution.

Internet service providers say Algeria has not caught up with the rest of the region in internet use. They blame the authorities for not encouraging the development of the Information Technology (IT) sector. Algeria has 5,000 domain names, while Tunisia has 16,000.

During a September 20th forum for internet service providers held in Algiers, Mohamed Saïdi, managing director of an IT firm, said Algeria has fallen behind other countries which have turned the IT niche into a major arm of their strategic development.

Saïdi discussed India which, thanks to the Internet, managed to export services worth $25 billion in 2005. He used the example of the United States, whose share of worldwide expenditure on the Internet is around 65%.

Ali Kehlane, managing director of Satinker, a service provider, further expressed regret that the development of mobile telephony had not been followed by that of the Internet. He said that there are only 2.1 million Internet users in Algeria, compared with 21 million mobile telephone subscribers. A large proportion of state institutions do not have websites, he added, and those that do exist are updated infrequently to never.

A government project to link all of the country's ministries by intranet, launched with great fanfare in 2004, and originally due for completion in 2006, has not seen the light of day. According to Kehlane, this lag means that Algeria relies entirely on online products from abroad.

"I cannot imagine a business in today’s world which does not have a PC or Internet access," Mohamed Bouzer, managing director of ABM, said. He added that the country needs to have an IT revolution to face the challenges of modernity. With imports of 200,000 PCs per year, he said, the country is lagging behind most of the world.

Mohamed Hamzaoui, managing director of Seri, raised the alarm over the amount of catching up needed to make information available over the Internet. "The Internet is not just about sending and receiving e-mails and files. It’s a way of giving and receiving information," he said, despairing at the sole use of the communication tool as an entertainment provider.

To boost the sector, Hamzaoui recommended reducing the cost of Internet access, regulating the market, creating a higher council for new technologies, linking all the providers and allowing a new fixed telephony provider to emerge.

Algeria currently has only 200,000 ADSL subscribers, although the authorities hope to push this figure up to 3 million in 2009. Many of the forum's participants said this objective will be impossible to achieve if incentives are not put in place.