Government urged to remove obstacles to internet access

LAHORE: Technology experts urged the government to remove obstacles that deprive around 152 million Pakistanis of the internet access benefits.
Pakistan is among five countries in the world where 550 million are offline due to high numbers of barriers to the internet access, an expert said, citing a report by the World Bank. Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania are facing the same situation.
The experts said the internet has a significant economic impact, promoting new innovative industries and spurring GDP growth.
They said internet promotes greater transparency and enhances literacy.
“Internet provides access to information, opportunities, and resources to improve quality of life,” said IT specialist Saad Syed.
“Large proportion of our population remains offline due to lack of awareness, relevant (local or localised) content and services and cultural or social acceptance.”
Syed added that there is a cost attached to the development of local content.
He said absence of trusted logistics and payment systems limited the growth of e-commerce and internet banking.
“Low incomes are also a barrier as the costs at which internet services are provided in Pakistan are not affordable,” he said. “Prohibitive taxes on internet use by both federal and provincial governments push further up the cost.”
Syed said poor infrastructure (such as roads and electricity) stops service providers from serving the low-income communities.
Technology expert Arshad Chughtai said limited access to international bandwidth is another barrier.
“Government has failed to effectively address the issue of broadband access and under-resourced infrastructure development,” Chughtai said.
“It should be a matter of concern for the economic planners that due to lack of proper access to digital technologies Pakistan is at a disadvantage as compared to the economies that have better internet access,” he said.
He said the planners should seriously take the World Bank’s report.
He added that Pakistan’s score in incentives to use internet was 21 out of 100 against 38 in Sri Lanka, 38 in India and 29 in Bangladesh.
In low income and affordability, Pakistan scored 63 out of 100. The score was 74 for Sri Lanka, 79 for India and 43 for Bangladesh.
On users’ capability, Pakistan scored 29 out of 100, Sri Lanka 86, India 39 and Bangladesh 31.
In infrastructure, Pakistan’s score was 10 out of 100, Sri Lanka 45, India 19, and Bangladesh 5.
The overall internet barrier score for Pakistan was 30, Sri Lanka 61, India 40 and Bangladesh 28.
Educationist Fakhra Yusuf said user capability is also a major barrier to internet use.
Yusuf said official literacy rate may be 60 percent but hardly 20 percent of the population is proficient in English –the language predominantly used in digital world.
Global online population grew to just over 2.7 billion people, driven by five trends. The worldwide Internet user population was around 3.1 billion people in 2014, with 2.2 billion more added since 2004.
The expansion of mobile network coverage and increasing mobile Internet adoption, urbanisation, shrinking device and data plan prices, a growing middle class, and the increasing utility of the internet fueled the growth. Low income group, elderly, illiterate and female have minimum or no access to the internet.