3G mobile services:Algeria among the eight poorest countries in the world

Algeria among the eight poorest countries of the world which suffer the lack of third generation services for mobile phones, experts and specialists in the world of communication technologies say.

“This reveals the volume of underdevelopment which Algerians suffer in this kind of communication technologies.

The list includes, furthermore than Algeria, Comoros, Eritrea, Guinea- Bissau, Republic of Central Africa and North Korea.

It is known that 3G mobile phone services offer technologies that were not included in the 2G, such as exchanging data, pictures and videos with a high speed.

These countries either suffer an international ban on importing technologies like North Korea, or due to a tough lack in their resources like Eritrea, which got independence years ago from Ethiopia, and Guinea-Bissau, Comoros and Central Africa, which were days ago a theatre of a coup d’état, but Algeria which does not neither poverty nor blockade.

While other African countries that are less rich and developed that Algeria to the 4G services like Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa and Morocco( after a month), Algerians still wait for licence of the 3G services, due to repeated promises which turned out to be hollow. So where dies the fault lie? Is it due to the lack of resources or the absence of a political will?

Justification that was announced by the Minister of Post and Communication Technologies, Moussa Ben Hamadi, last weekend, was covered by a commercial consideration , especially when he said, “I admit that I have announced several times on dates for launching the 3G, but this is related to the purchase of Djezzy by the state, and we do not want to prevent the company’s customers from the 3G market, therefor I decided to postpone the operation for the public benefit”.

So what do the professionals think?

Younes Kerrar, expert in electronic communication said, “The delay of license for the 3G services due to the lack of seriousness by the government in including this modern service, the imposition of personal interest and fear of transparency”, in addition to the few rate of people who have political considerations, in a reference to fear of the public opinion.

For his part, Farid Fareh, an expert in communications, thinks that the delay in launching the 3G for mobile phones is due to the lack of state control of the digital system.