Mariana DRAGUNEA on Wed, 15 Apr 1998 16:55:53 +0200 (MET DST) |
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<nettime> Building a Romanian market |
[Originally to the Online Europe list.-T] > Bart Dominus <BDominus@aol.com> first asserted: > > > I'm working with a new national ISP in Romania. No, not > > profitable yet . . . but it looks like it can be. If here, why not > > elsewhere? > > And then, prompted by Steve, added: > > > The company I'm working with is Dynamic Network technologies (DNT) as > > in http://www.dnt.ro. I met them through you and first worked with > > them as a volunteer late this past fall. > > > What Bart failed to add, though, was that DNT is not your average start-up > company. It's a company OWNED by the non-profit!!! Soros Foundation. So, > surely, it's not out there to make a profit; it may as well never want to > make one... > > About volunteering for DNT!, I'd like to have some more comments... > > What happened in Romania is very strange, and I'd like to have your > opinion. As I'm not an insider in this business, there may be some minor > inaccuracies in my account, because I relate things as I saw them as a > consumer of Internet services; actually we are software developers > (including Internet programs). > > So: The Soros Foundation set up an Internet Program some 5 years ago, aimed > primarily at high-schools, NGO's, research institution and the like. The > Foundation set up its own infrastructure (VSAT dishes, access points etc.) > and it charged nothing for the services... > > Very quickly, though, you could find among its users LOTS of commercial > companies. Paying NOTHING! They had accounts with the foundation because > they were friends of sysadmins, or relatives, or the Soros people were > simply too kind to refuse them, or... > > When things started to get out of control, with way too many users > overwhelming the Soros infrastructure, the foundation thought of starting > to charge commercial companies for the services - to cover SOME costs (it > was 1996). > > They couldn't though charge directly though, because the law would not > allow a foundation to act like an ISP! It would have also meant to come out > about the real profile of their users, as they claimed all along that "no > commercial company is using Soros services". > > This is how, when and why DNT was set up. It simply took over, in the > clear, the Internet accounts set up with Soros, infrastructure included. > > The result of all this is that, for the average Romanian person or company, > the (first) idea of an Internet account was that of something you get for > free from Soros or some academic network. In my view, it also meant that > all major international ISP's had no chance to compete with this kind of > "pricing". It also meant that the other ISP's in Romania are small and the > quality of their service and infrastructure is poor. The exception is > EUnet, which offers good service, but at a hefty price... (Julf might want > to write a few words ?) > > This kind of "competition" exists in your countries also? And how much of a > good thing, and for whom, do you think it is, when "building this market"? > > > > * to subscribe regular: mailto:europe-on@isys.hu > * to unsubscribe regular: mailto:europe-off@isys.hu > * to subscribe digest: mailto:europe-digest-on@isys.hu > * to unsubscribe digest: mailto:europe-digest-off@isys.hu > > * list archives: http://www.isys.hu/online-europe --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl