The CICP Newsletter, No. 14, May 1996

by Sophal Ear*

The Internet is fast becoming the preferred medium of communication for the rest of the world, while for Cambodia it has barely scratched the surface. The first question one should ask is, what is the Internet? The Internet is a series of networked com puters that send information to one another at varying speeds called "bandwidth". This network spans the entire globe and has truly made communication between citizens of distant nations not only affordable, but convenient. In what context is the Internet already in Cambodia? Many years ago, when the Internet was just an American military messaging system, electronic mail or "e-mail" represented most of the information being sent across the network. This level of connectivity has been in Cambodia now for at least a couple of years. Cambodia has several Internet Service Providers (ISPs), some cater only to public interests, while others are purely commercial. CCCnet, Unilink, FORUM, and CM-17, are just the known ISPs.

Several multilateral organizations, bilateral aid agencies, and certainly embassies use their own e-mail systems which are themselves compatible on the wider Internet. Cost ranges, but no matter how one counts it, the use of long distance calls in all these services makes it impossible to prevent internalizing the cost of both receiving and sending messages. In economic terms, those who send e-mails to users in Cambodia do not pay for their actions, while the recipients do. The Internet abroad sees lit tle of this reflected to the actual users, and the relative power and bandwidth of networks in these countries allow for tremendous economies of scale. ISPs in Cambodia currently work using modems to transmit messages on a scheduled basis, several times p er day, and do not offer more than e-mail and newsgroup connectivity. However, in America and other countries, this level of access evolved eventually to include the trans-mission of information far more complex than mere messages, via FTP or File Transfe r Protocol and Gopher. About three years ago, a major milestone was reached, when the NCSA, an agency funded by the U.S. government, introduced the Web Browser called Mosaic. NCSA-Mosaic allows users access to digital information by pointing the browser t o a site, called a URL, on the World Wide Web (WWW). Today, there are an estimated 1 million such sites, and 50 million pages in these sites. The vast reservoir of information allows user of the WWW to buy airplane tickets, see movie previews, read about Cambodia, and most importantly, communicate to one another knowledge, all from the comfort of their home.

Outside of Cambodia, there are literally thousands of Cambodians using the Internet, and talking to one another. These Cambodians have been able to communicate vast amounts of information, and often at no cost to them. The Internet is free to students at the University level, and is becoming standard issue to High School students as well. What have Cambodians outside of Cambodia done on the Internet? Nearly two years ago, a usenet newsgroup was created on the Internet, called soc.culture.cambodia. That newsgroup, whose subject is: "Cambodia and her people" sorely lacks the participation of Cambodia's own citizens. There are debates, papers presented and shared, discussions (some serious, others frivolous). There is friendship and camaraderie, but so fa r, few of these are among Cambodians and friends of Cambodians abroad and their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and friends in Cambodia.

The Internet brings about the type of interaction which countries need, it brings understanding among nations, and cooperation among men and women. There is, to be sure, a calculation to be made as to whether a technology as costly as the Internet can be affordable to a poor country like Cambodia., but there is no doubt that the benefits that Cambodia would reap from the Internet are ones which will grow for years to come.

The unreliability of the electric and telephone service creates additional operational cost to the end-users. Internet end-users, in general all computer users, must secure uninterruptable power supplies and surge protectors, while modem transmissi on itself can fail easily especially at the higher throughput baud rates of 28.8 kbps (up to 115kbps. when compressed). While analog cellular communications does fine in a situation of supply-demand equilibrium, under excess demand, the introduction of di gital cellular service will multiply capacity several folds--as it already has in America--and hence ease prices down. The price of cellular service in Cambodia is still quite high, which suggests that there is excess demand and insufficient competition and/or capacity to drive prices down. Digital cellular service would therefore benefit both consumers of traditional telephone and fax services, but also Internet users whose modems must be connected to telephones. At the same time, the general sales tax a nd tariff imposed, especially on imported equipment like cellular phones, computers and peripherals, in a situation of low price-demand elasticity, is nearly fully transmitted to the buyer.

* Sophal Ear is currently a Research Fellow and Lecturer at CICP. The article here is entirely his personal opinions.