Dear Fouad I have most of these sites but when one tries to get to the basis of each statistic and one becomes uneasy since these refer to sources which (at least for Pakistan) are in many cases, invalid. Also the data e.g. in the UN reports are off by several years and are also incorrectly sourced.
The issue is how one really estimates the number of Internet users. Claude's and your inputs are useful and I feel that if I can get PTA to fund it, I would compose a media campaign for a common short code SMS for all carriers, broadcast to all users of cell phones to return with a yes or no to a question if they use the Internet or not. This campaign would have rewards linked to responses. The logic is that Internet users will usually also be Cell phone users (40 Million of them!) and we may just get a better handle on at least where we stand in Pakistan. Regards Salman -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Fouad Riaz Bajwa Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:41 PM To: 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group'; 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [pakistanictpolicy] RE: [DDN] Estimating the number of internet users in a country - amoving target Dear Salman, I have used and referenced stats from the following websites frequently and most of these are updated on a regular basis and are widely referenced by many sources. Best website for identifying Website and Domain Hosting Info with detailed analysis of companies and stakeholders, I particularly like the market segmentation analysis they provide and has lot of important business data. http://webhosting.info/ For Pakistan http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/tophosts/Country/PK Internet Usage World Stats - Internet and Population Statistics Internet World Usage Statistics for 233 countries and regions of the world, 2006 population statistics and information for Internet Marketing Research. http://www.internetworldstats.com Internet Society Market Research/Statistics http://www.isoc.org/internet/stats/ ITU-International Telecommunication Union Free Statistics, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics Internet Usage Snapshot Links http://www.refdesk.com/netsnap.html Global Internet Statistics (by Language) http://www.glreach.com/globstats/index.php3 References: http://global-reach.biz/globstats/refs.php3 Details by Country http://global-reach.biz/globstats/details.html Ecommerce Stats till 2004 http://glreach.com/eng/ed/art/2004.ecommerce.php3 Regards ----------------------- Fouad Riaz Bajwa FOSS Advocate FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan iFOSSF International Free and Open Source Software Foundation, MI, USA -----Original Message----- From: Salman Ansari [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 6:30 AM To: 'The Digital Divide Network discussion group' Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [DDN] Estimating the number of internet users in a country - amoving target In the mail on Tele-medicine, what struck me was the figure of 50 M Internet users in India. I feel the same way when I read statistics of other countries as well. I have always wondered how the number of Internet users in a country is estimated. Over the last 10 years I have been struggling to get to an educated estimate but the range is anything between 5 to 20 Million in Pakistan. I am doing a comprehensive report for setting up Telecenters in the rural areas and despite my long experience in Telecommunications and Internet, I cannot find a sensible and standard acceptable method of finding out how many users does a country or region have. The reason for this complexity for estimating this is because: 1. Each user does not have a registered unique identity like a telephone number hence we cannot make (nearly) neat guesstimates like GSM users. Even GSM users are off by over 20 - 30% since prepaid SIMs do not ensure that every SIM has one user liked to it as people have multiple SIMs. 2. The same issue is exacerbated when trying to determine 'active' and 'inactive' users for this purpose. 3. Most users are pre-paid accounts using scratch cards. But scratch cards are no measure of the number of users. 4. One cannot count e-mail address of local ISPs any longer, since a vast majority uses gmail, hotmail, yahoo or other mail servers 5. The number of users of cyber cafes, Telecenters and other iterant users cannot be counted 6. With HFC, DSL and Broadband in offices and building complexes with local distribution via LANs but having hundreds of users behind a single IP address Hence I fear that the numbers of users given in each country is mostly fiction. Can some one give a proper and standardized method of estimating the number of Internet users in a country, region and world? Or is it just someone conjuring up a number and getting as many people to use this for it becoming THE respectable datum?! The same is the issue with finding the e-readiness of a country by basing it on the number of IP addresses and 'Hosts' alone. What measure is used in different countries - especially in developed and developing economies? I feel that that a standardized and accurate method should be adopted since the status of countries, their own internal development programs and for a variety of other purposes, is now being reckoned based on faulty and uneven statistics of telecommunications usage, specially the Internet. Regards Salman Ansari -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay Bhatt Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 3:39 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [DDN] Doc's prescription for tele-medicine Hi all An articlce about Internet and tele-medicine in India- How is Internet helping tele-medicine to grow in villages of India? An article recently published in Moneycontrol website points out the benefits of Internet in shaping tele-medicine in India. Excerpt:"But now, Telemedicine has got a new lease of life, thanks to the spread of the Internet. With the number of Internet users growing by leaps and bounds (numbering over 50 million as of December 2005, according to Internetworldstats.com and broadband set to explode into Indian homes, the World Wide Web might just be the medicine that the doctor had prescribed for an ailing tele-medicine." Read the full article at: Doc's prescription for tele-medicine <http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/tech/docsprescriptionfortelemedicine telemedicine/docsprescriptionfortelemedicine/market/stocks/article/238775> Jay Jay Bhatt Information Services Consultant (Engineering) Hagerty Library, Drexel University TEL 215-895-1873 AOL IM jaybhatt59 YAHOO IM jay_bhatt_98 FAX 215-895-2070 EMAIL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Engineering Resources Blog: http://www.library.drexel.edu/blogs/englibrary/ Jay's Information Initiatives in India community on the Digital Divide Network http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/InformationIndia Jay's blog on the Digital Divide Network http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/jaybhatt Jay's Journal on LISNews http://www.lisnews.org/~Jay/journal Jay's submissions on LISNews http://www.lisnews.org/~Jay _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. 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