nowEurope

The Czech Republic (CR) like other European countries receives subsidies from the EU’s Structural Funds (SF). There are 26 operation programs in CR and all of them use some electronic system for receiving applications. There are three bigger online applications which applicants have to use.

So far it looks like an example of good practice. But, in my opinion, using IT in this area is a typical example of how to use IT to complicate the work of users.

Why there are three different big systems? Just because the ministries were not able to agree, so two ministries developed their own systems and the third developed a system which uses most of the operating programs.

Only one system uses an electronic signature and is totally online. So, the electronic submission is sufficient for the application. However, it is necessary after filling out the electronic applications with the other systems, to print the application and submit it in paper form! Usually in two or three copies … Why? To save the time and paper of official authorities.

Continue reading ‘(Mis)using IT for Structural Funds administration in the Czech Republic’

Along with the increasing popularity of the technology debate in Austria during the last years and after numerous discussions with ICT researchers in the Centrope countries I realised that there is a striking resemblance in their complaints, although the statements themselves express the respective opposite. See also http://noweurope.com/2009/09/08/barriers-cooperation/#more-1293 by Vlastimil.

Simply speaking, the Austrians complain that there’s not enough money for basic research as all goes to applied research, whereas the Czech and Slovak Republics as well as Hungary (representing the situation in virtually all new EU member states and beyond) complain that universities concentrate too much on basic research and do not understand the importance of applied research. Continue reading ‘Basic vs. applied research: Potentials unused?’

I had the privilege of attending the CITT project meeting at Bratislava on June 6, 2009. This experience led me to consider what is the optimal model for building a cluster.

In running clusters, we can see two basic models. One is strongly business oriented, where a cluster is almost like a holding company with central leadership. It has its own business department. Individual cluster members are rather like branches of this holding company, responsible for specific parts of a well-defined business deal.

The second model is more like an ad hoc network of independent organizations, where members cooperate on various projects. Not all members have to collaborate in all running projects. I should point out that in the Czech Republic, this second model is supported by structural funding.

Continue reading ‘Two basic models for building a cluster’

Analyzing prices for mobile phone usage, in his posting on July 2nd, Robert Nemeth asked an interesting question: “How could the same multinational telecom company cut prices by more than 50% in Austria, while keeping the same price in HU and SK and increasing prices in CZ?” Here is my explanation. This answer applies to the Czech Republic, but it’s also a warning for other countries.

The problem was described in the Commission’s 14^th implementation progress report, published in March this year. Among other benchmarks, it used an OECD basket of mobile usage and calculated the cost in various EU countries – in October 2007 and October 2008. The results are what Robert mentions: a drop of around 50% for Austria, of 10% for the EU average – but an increase of 24% for the Czech Republic.

This struck me too, so in March I looked more deeply into the issue and wrote an article about it (available here, but only in Czech). My findings can be summarized as follows:

• Half of the increase for the Czech Republic (12% out of 24%) can be attributed to variations of the exchange rate between the Czech crown and the Euro. The two currencies did change accordingly between October 2007 and 2008, when the benchmark was evaluated. But there is also a strong contra-argument: other comparisons in the same Commission’s report do not reflect the change in exchange rates at all. Maybe because different parts of the report were produced by different people using different methodologies.
• The other half of the increase (the remaining 12%) can be attributed mainly to the changes in call charging. Between 2007 and 2008 our mobile operators silently completed their switch to variants that maximize their revenues. Mainly to 60+60, which is now the standard for national mobile calls, and also for roaming.

Continue reading ‘How did mobile prices rise by 20% in the Czech Republic?’

Robert wrote an interesting post on the huge differences in the average mobile phones bills in Centrope. Let’s take a look at some other sectors. Here are the figures for the Czech Republic …

Internet advertising
Czech advertisers spent roughly CZK 5 billion (€190 mil.) on the Internet last year. That represents about 10% of the country’s total advertising spend. According to the Factum Invenio research, advertisers spent CZK 3.3 billion on web banners, CZK 1 billion on search ads, and CZK 0.75 billion on directories.

Internet access in households
According to the Czech Telecommunication Office, 52% of inhabitants have Internet access at home. 44% of the households use Wi-Fi (twice as much as the EU average), 21% cable, 18% ADSL, 10% mobile phones, 5% traditional dial-up and 4% ISDN.

Broadband
According to the Czech Statistical Office there were 1.9 million broadband lines at the end of 2008. That represents an annual growth of 15%. The technology with the highest share is ADSL (681K users). 572k users prefer Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies, 360K use cable.

Mobile phone users
In 2008, the number of the mobile phone numbers increased by 500,000 to 13.57 million. Vodafone posted the highest growth (in total 2.89 million subscribers) while T-Mobile remained the operator with the highest number of active SIM cards (5.42 million) and the national incumbent Telefónica O2 5.26 mil.

WEF Global IT Report
According to the Global Information Technology Report 2008–2009 (published annually) by the World Economic Forum there are 27 personal computers, 43 internet users, 16 broadband subscribers and 128 active SIM cards per 100 inhabitants. That puts the Czech Republic in 32nd place among 134 countries after Austria (16th) and before Hungary (41st) and Slovakia (43rd). The ranking is led by Denmark, Sweden and the USA. The research was based on nine indexes evaluating environment (market, political, regulatory  and infrastructure), readiness (individual, corporate, government) and usage (individual, corporate, government).

Studying the Commission’s 14th progress report on the single telecoms market, it is surprising to notice that the consumer price for medium mobile usage has dropped significantly in Austria, while remaining the same in other Central European countries.

In Austria, the consumer price for medium mobile usage  dropped from €16.36 per month in 2008 to as low as €7.31. This is the third lowest mobile rate in the EU. At the same time in the Czech Republic, the price rose by more than 20% (from € 21.99 to € 27.24), while in Slovakia and Hungary the prices remained the same as previous year (€ 25.97 and € 15.02 respectively).

I wonder what is the reason for this difference. How could the same multinational telecom company cut prices by more than 50% in Austria, while keeping the same price in HU and SK and increasing prices in CZ ?

Finding the answer to this question is a central goal of the Centrope ICT Technology Transfer project (CITT). The project is comprised of six partners in four countries – Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – and funded by European Community.

To reach this answer, we performed a SWOT analysis, focusing our attention on the ICT sector. Here are the results of this analysis – the first part. (I’m dividing this work into two parts, due to the length of the text.)

Continue reading ‘Does Centrope have the potential for an ICT cluster? (part one)’

Below, Miklos Barta posted that interesting comment on telemedicine in the US vs. Europe and that this cross border issue is still hampered by national regulations.

1) I definitely prefer and appreciate the medical care systems as practiced in Europe’s most advanced countries, such as Germany, Austria, Sweden, or the Czech Republic (I am mentioning CR as I was positively surprised on what a high level health care is being practiced here). In these countries (but also in most other EU countries as well as Switzerland), health care is heavily regulated and largely controlled by public bodies, therefore mostly bureaucratic and tedious, but it works! (I am not going to discuss here prevention vs. treatment etc., which would be a crucial point in such a debate)

2) Telemedicine is definitely an upcoming technology and will improve homecare, geriatric treatment etc., and in my home country Austria there is a growing number of very innovative solutions both on the development as well as the application side. If you want to know more, contact me.

3) In this respect, European mobility is still in its infancy, both on the patients’ and the health systems’ sides. Continue reading ‘Telemedicine: Ideal test bed for EU’s efficiency’

In the framework of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency Masaryk University in Brno, CITT partner First Innovation Park and others organised an EU project information and brokerage event on April 30, 2009, where I had the honour and pleasure to speak. The hall was full, people interested and attentive. Allow me therefore this time to comment myself.

Originally I planned to talk about chances and risks in R&D and EU activities in Central Europe, but facing the present economic situation I thought I should rather offer general information on what is happening in the ICT markets in the region. Continue reading ‘ICT Brokerage Brno: ICT better off than other industries’

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009, was the sixth Safer Internet Day: an opportunity to think about the potential dangers that children and youngsters are exposed to, when they go alone out of the house on-line. And to discuss what can be done to help them behave more responsibly and be better informed about the risks and traps.

But among all those cries of “how children fall victims of the Internet”, did anybody think about how much do we owe our children, when it comes to Internet take-up? How much do they increase the penetration of Internet in households?

Available statistics are clear on this subject: households with children have a much greater Internet penetration than households without children. And the reasoning behind this fact is also obvious: children need Internet because of their schools. Not only to be in touch with classmates, but also to prepare homework and engage in other school-related activities. And the higher the school is, the more the student is dependent on the Internet. At the university level, students cannot enroll for classes or register for examinations without going online.

Continue reading ‘The most effective Internet motivators? Children!’