INFRASTRUCTURE, CONTENT, AND TRAINING A practical layman and citizen’s approach to looking at ICT as Infrastructure, Content, and Training, and the technology initiatives specifically designed to enhance business, will now be considered. 5.1 5.1.1 Technical Infrastructure SVG has made excellent progress with its national infrastructure as is evident in the rapid growth in mobile communications and in the movement of rates to a more affordable level. This Programme therefore seeks to monitor and evaluate the current initiatives in progress so as to maximise success and alignment with the needs of the national ICT agenda. However, this Programme, Universal Connectivity, seeks to ensure that all of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has the same level of access to communications services irrespective of living in an urban or rural part of St. Vincent or on one of the Grenadine islands. This means continued strategic use of the Universal Service Fund and ensuring that the proposed projects are taken to completion and in fact expanded to include all communities over r the life of the Plan. The Universal Connectivity Programme will build on the demand created by other programmes and projects under this Plan, such as the Community Integration Project and the various Portals that will be accessible at a community level in rural areas. This programme will build on the SMS capacity of the mobile telephony infrastructure for disaster preparedness and for dissemination of government information and delivery of eservices. In order for citizens and business to participate in this medium, they must have access to Broadband and the computer related devices to access information. It is imperative that SVG adapt technologies to create solutions to existing problems, and in this particular case, the establishment of a National Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is required. There are a number of benefits that can be derived directly from the establishment of a local IXP and these include the establishment of a well defined Internet economy that will keep SVG internet traffic local, enhance the Internet experience of users, reduce overall cost related to providing Internet services, promote and encourage the creation of local content, create Internet opportunities, build technical capacity, improved connectivity through fibre optic and high speed wireless, and the aggregation of demand will make it more attractive for additional transit providers to enter the market. A local IXP would result in a vast increase in the network capacity (bandwidth) available for sale to domestic customers, without demanding any significant corresponding capital or operational investment. This would make more bandwidth available for important activities such as video streaming and telemedicine and increase the national penetration of broadband Internet. An IXP is a prerequisite to the development of any significant domestic content production, hosting, or co-location industry. This barrier must be overcome before major content providers like Google or Amazon will consider providing local services within national markets. The increased demand for these services, and the ISPs ability to supply them at a lower price-point, will serve to increase both market penetration and the total revenue-value of the market, relative to the pre- IXP status-quo. This is an important infrastructure initiative that will be given priority in implementation. With the reduction of available IPv4 address space, a new version of the Internet Protocol was established called IPv6, also known as IP Next Generation (IPNG). This version will address the exhaustion of addresses to connect computers or host. However its implementation requires careful planning and coordination. SVG will have to take stock of what exists and manage its introduction. 5.1.2 e-Government The e-Government Programme aims to provide a shared technology infrastructure that is stable and secure and which embraces a set of policies and standards for the connection to and use of this shared infrastructure. It provides for the development of the public sector people capacity to manage the e-government communications network that is already under construction and which will be expanded under this Programme. The e-government platform will enable G2G, C2G and B2G connectivity, while providing services such as domain management, security and intrusion protection, virtual private networks, firewalls, and physical connectivity between government locations. The shared infrastructure will enable the provision and management of shared services such as email, Internet, Intranet, Voice over IP, collocation of servers, application hosting and SAN facilities. The challenge will be for the government of SVG to re-organise itself to take advantage of the enabling technology to improve its business processes and its service delivery model to its businesses and citizens. Projects and Programmes P a g e | 63