ICT development discussed in Baku
By Nigar Orujova
The ICT sector will play an important role in the development of Azerbaijan's economy, next to the oil sector, Communications and Information Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov told journalists on June 3.
According to Abbasov, issues related to the development of the ICT sector and its role in the framework of the development concept "Azerbaijan 2020: A Look into the Future" are on the agenda of discussions with foreign experts at the Baku Futures Forum being held on June 3.
"The ICT sector is a priority direction of the economic development in the whole world," he said. "Interest in its development is currently evident in many countries that rely on the energy sector. The experience of Azerbaijan in the correct transformation of the oil revenues into the development of the ICT sector, as well as in providing a stable development of the economy in the future, interests many countries. This issue will be one of the themes to be discussed within the framework of the conference."
A two-fold increase of the economic potential at the expense of the non-oil sector is envisaged by the concept. The main goal of the concept is a four-fold growth of the ICT sector.
With this purpose a number of measures such as the creation of a favorable competitive environment, development of labor resources and attraction of investments have been undertaken. A network of technology parks is being created in Azerbaijan and for their financial support a number of funds, particularly an ICT development fund, are being established, Abbasov said.
As for the development of human resources, the development of the education sector is also envisioned.
"Here we are talking about the creation of a higher educational institution on ICT, Information Technologies University," Abbasov said.
2013 was declared the Year of ICT in Azerbaijan; moreover, in order to develop the domestic ICT sector, the ICT University was established under a presidential order in February.
President Ilham Aliyev also approved the regulations on the State Fund for IT Development and the Action Plan on the Year of ICT in Azerbaijan. According to the action plan, it is planned to develop an ICT strategy, improve the registration procedure of the national domain .az and significantly reduce fees for telecommunication services and Internet access.
Digital broadcasting
Speaking about digital broadcasting in Azerbaijan, Abbasov noted that analogue broadcasting will be suspended till the end of the year.
Azerbaijan is the first CIS country to implement a transition to digital broadcasting.
The minister said that starting from 2014 Azerbaijani television will be fully broadcasted in digital format.
A gradual replacement of the analogue signal with a digital one will start from the regions of Azerbaijan, thus, by the end of the year the population of Azerbaijan will be fully covered by the DVB-T standard signal of digital television.
At present, 94.3 percent of the country's population is covered with the digital TV signal.
A social package consisting of 12 TV channels is available for the population. The broadcasting of digital content will be carried out in the MPEG-4 format. Subscribers must purchase a decoder to receive digital broadcasts.
The domestic market demand for the decoders is expected to reach 1.5 million units. The devices' cost will fully comply with market prices and will not exceed 30 manats ($38).
There are four different Digital Terrestrial Television-Broadcasting standards (DTTB) for digital television, and the Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard is used in Azerbaijan as well as a number of European, African and Asian countries. In total, there are 46 DVB-T standard digital TV signal transmitters functioning on Azerbaijani territory.
The first local satellite, Azerspace-1, completed technical work on the allocation of resources to local TV and radio broadcasters in May. The satellite will also be used to render digital TV and radio broadcasting services in the country.