In a very basic
sense, the advancement of a country's IT focus can be related to the infrastructure
within the telecommunications industry. The telecom industry tends to
be far reaching and expansive allowing for a natural infrastructure that
can be used for further technology advancement. An example is the prevalence
of dial up internet usage within the United States where the telecommunications
infrastructure is extremely far reaching, the number of telephone mainlines
is 700 per 1,000 people.
The following are
various statistics concerning the infrastructure within the island of
Cyprus.(24)(26)
- average cost of
a local call $0.03
- land line telephones
in use 405,000 Greek Cypriot & 83,162 Turkish Cypriot (1998)
- domestic telephone
system is said to be in excellent condition in both the Greek and Turkish
Cypriot areas, the system is open wire,, fiber-optic cable and microwave
radio relay
- internation telephone
system is troposheric scatter, 3 coaxial and 5 fiber-optic submarine
cables
- satellite earth
stations - 3 Intelsat (1 Atlantic Ocean and 2 Indian Ocean), 2 Eutelsat,
2 Intersputnik and 1 Arabsat
- can access 204
countries directly from telephone service
- telefax, telex,
audiotex and videoconferencing are all capabilities
- data transmission
service is offered by either public switched telephoen network, point
to point leased circuits or via the packet Switched Public Data Network
(CYTAPAC)
- participated along
with 53 other countries in the SEA-ME-WE 2 project, a submarine fibre
optic cable system connecting the Far East with the Middle East and
Europe(27)
- the research infrastructure
is being supported by the government of the Republic of Cyprus by promoting
the connection with the European Research and Academic Network QUANTUM/QMED(21)
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