broadband strategies handbook.pdf - Khazar University

Box 6.5: Promoting Dig ital Literacy through Primary and SecondarySchoolsKorea. The Korean Agency for Digital Opportunityand Promotion introduced a widerange of programs to promote digital literacyand access to computers, including subsidiesfor the purchase of PCs by low-incomecitizens. Established in 1999, this programprovides low-cost PCs, partly through a purchaseinstallment plan using the postal savingssystem and partly through a leasingprogram whereby government purchases50,000 PCs and provides them to low-incomefamilies on a four-year lease, with freebroadband for five years. Low-income studentswith good grades also receive freecomputers. Persons with disabilities andthose receiving public assistance are eligibleto receive free used computers.China. China subsidizes computers forpersons living in rural areas: families with aregistered permanent rural residence canobtain a 13 percent subsidy if they purchasean eligible PC. Vendors compete for approvalto sell computers under this program, andtheir maximum prices are limited under theterms of the approval. While there is a directgovernment outlay to pay for the 13 percentsubsidy, the government’s costs are at leastsomewhat offset by the taxes collected onall economic activity associated with themanufacturing, marketing, sale, and distributionof these computers, much of which alsotakes place within China.Portugal. Portugal has launched two successfullow-cost computer projects as part ofits government program to promote broadband—theE-Escola (E-School) Program andthe E-Escolinha Program. The E-School Program,initiated in June 2007, distributes laptopswith broadband Internet access toteachers and secondary school students. BySeptember 2010, the program had distributedover 450,000 laptops throughout the country.The laptops are sold by telecommunicationsproviders at €150 (US$220) with a €5 discountover the basic monthly fee for 3, 5, and7.2 megabits per second (Mbit/s) connections.Lower-income students get the laptops forfree and broadband connectivity at 3 Mbit/sfor between €5 and €15 per month. E-schoolis subsidized by the fees mobile operatorspaid for third-generation (3G) licenses. In July2008, the government in partnership with Intellaunched the E-Escolinha Program to producea Portuguese version of the Intel Classmate(the “Magalhães”). The project calls for distributingthese computers to 500,000 primaryschool students; by September 2010 over410,000 computers had been distributed.Sources: Atkinson, Correa, and Hedlund 2008; World Bank 2010; Escalões da Acção Social Escolar, http://eescola.pt/e-escola/Arab states, 79 percent, Asia and Pacific, 68 percent, Commonwealth ofIndependent States, 132 percent, Europe, 120 percent, and the Americas,94 percent. 18 In recent years, mobile service providers have begun to offerbroadband services in addition to the original voice telephony and narrowbanddata services.264 Broadband Strategies Handbook