Key ICT Information

• In 1990, Telstra of Australia provided the first 300, then 600, then 1,200 telephone lines via satellite
• Since 1997, the number of wireless phones has outnumbered wired phones.
• In 2001, Cambodia had 31,000 wired phones and 250,000 mobile phones, a ratio of about 1:8 - the" world's highest mobile share".
• A study in 2001 identified about 100 Internet cafes in Phnom Penh, while one Internet access point each in the provincial capitals of Pursat and Kompong Thom.
• Linux network servers have been in use in Cambodia since 1996. The challenge "to avoid dependency on proprietary systems, instead promoting open systems and interoperability" was mentioned in the closing remark of Senior Minister Sok.
• Only in early 2000 did the Open Forum of Cambodia,11 a Cambodian NGO which is committed to facilitating and fostering communication in Cambodian society, actively promote a free software package which allows writing e-mail directly in Khmer.
• Two ISPs provide online and time-charged dial-up services using prepaid cards at their portals. The first is Bigpond (set up by Telstra of Australia in 1997 and bought over in mid-2002 by the Cambodian company Cogetel - it is now changing its name to Online). The second is broadband provider Telesurf.
• The right to "secrecy of correspondence by mail, telegram, fax, telex and telephone" is guaranteed in the Constitution of 1993,33 though the Internet is not specifically mentioned.

ICT industries and services

• There are about 100 Internet cafés in Phnom Penh and a small number in the other tourist centres: Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat) and the port city of Sihanoukville.
• VOIP was declared illegal by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC) on 30 December 1998, so far it is not being consistently suppressed.
• The high cost of telecommunications in Cambodia is also criticised by part of the political leadership, such as Prince Ranariddh.
• The first computer shop was set up in 1992, at a time when even standard equipment such as modems was not stocked by local retailers and had to be specially ordered from Singapore.
  

Software

• The first indigenously developed software in the pre- Windows time was a DOS-based Khmer package "Khmer in Office", which quickly disappeared when Windows 3.1 became the dominant software.
• The Open Forum of Cambodia provided in early 2000 a free-of-charge font conversion program - TeukTrey - which can handle 23 different font families and convert them to the Word file format, the de facto standard in Cambodia for text files.
• Cambodia began to have access to the Internet in 1994 through e-mail and in 1997 to the World Wide Web.

Open Source

• Linux network servers have been in use in Cambodia since 1996. The challenge "to avoid dependency on proprietary systems, instead promoting open systems and interoperability" was mentioned in the closing remark of Senior Minister Sok An at the 2001 IT Awareness Seminar.
• It is estimated that Cambodia would have to pay about US$5 million per annum for basic software licences alone, if software use were to be regulated.

Source: Digital Review for Asia Pacific