Finland has toppled Sweden from the top
spot in a ranking of economies that are best placed to benefit from new
information and communication technologies (ICTs). Singapore came in second and
Sweden third in the 2013 Networked Readiness Index.
The Networked Readiness Index, calculated
by the WEF, and INSEAD (an acronym for the French "Institut Européen
d'Administration des Affaires" or European Institute of Business
Administration), ranks 144 economies based on their capacity to exploit the
opportunities offered by the digital age. This capacity is determined by the
quality of the regulatory, business and innovation environments, the degree of
preparedness, the actual usage of ICTs, as well as the societal and economic
impacts of ICTs. The assessment is based on a broad range of indicators from
Internet access and adult literacy to mobile phone subscriptions and the
availability of venture capital. In addition, indicators such as patent
applications and e-government services gauge the social and economic impact of
digitization.
Namibia is ranked 111 out of 144 countries
in the survey.
Further interesting facts highlighted in
the WEF report include the following rankings (out of 144 countries)
|
Namibia
Country Ranking
|
Ranking out of 144
|
Score
|
|
Networked Readiness Index 2012 (out of
142)
|
105
|
3.3
|
|
A. Environment subindex
|
58
|
4
|
|
1st pillar: Political and regulatory
environment
|
37
|
4.4
|
|
2nd pillar: Business and innovation
environment
|
112
|
3.7
|
|
B. Readiness subindex
|
115
|
3.3
|
|
3rd pillar: Infrastructure and digital
content
|
102
|
3
|
|
4th pillar: Affordability
|
117
|
3.1
|
|
5th pillar: Skills
|
111
|
3.7
|
|
C. Usage subindex
|
101
|
3.1
|
|
6th pillar: Individual usage
|
99
|
2.5
|
|
7th pillar: Business usage
|
76
|
3.4
|
|
8th pillar: Government usage
|
116
|
3.4
|
|
D. Impact subindex
|
122
|
2.7
|
|
9th pillar: Economic impacts
|
117
|
2.7
|
|
10th pillar: Social impacts
|
121
|
2.8
|
There is a ranking in the report where
Namibia is Number 1 - that is in “Mobile Network Coverage”. Thus we can be
proud in having the highest coverage of our population (as small as it is) with
mobile cellular services.
A new report from Research ICT Africa (RIA)
provides another view of Namibia’s e-readiness.
In a table from the RIA report, a
comparison is made between costs of ADSL (fixed line) and mobile costs to use
the Internet and other data services. Namibia ranks very favourably in the cost
of fixed line data access at USD 40.32 per month but it is shocking to see that
our data access via mobile is over USD 100 or N$ 990 per month.
This cost comparison is very relevant as
most Namibian consumer are using their cellular telephones to use the internet
rather than fixed “home” lines. Thus the poorer sections of the population will
pay up to 2.5 times higher for data access via the most available medium,
namely cellular.
The Communications Regulatory Authority of
Namibia (CRAN) needs to be proactive on engaging the service providers (all of
whom belong to the state-owned Namibia Post and Telecommunications Holdings
company). CRAN is after all responsible
to (among others):
- · Implement a transparent and fair pricing regime
- · Respond to consumer complaints
- · Protect consumers in respect of prices, quality, variety of services and user equipment supplied
- · Promote competition amongst service providers
