In the modern world, practically all spheres of our life are closely connected with information technologies. No matter how trite this phrase may sound, it does not lose its truth from this in the least.
The defense industry and
nuclear plants, medicine and education - all this, and also much more today can no longer exist without a normally developed information support. Unfortunately, in our country they began to understand this relatively recently.
Once upon a time, the predicted possibility of the existence of “bookmarks” was documented after the exposure of one notorious former CIA officer. After that, our government with a squeak recognized the need to develop its own production of processors and software. So, just a couple of months ago, it was announced the creation of new computing platforms that are completely built on domestic components. In addition, intensive work in this direction is carried out in the defense industry.
The whole set of such factors is denoted by the abbreviation ICT. These are the information and communication technologies that underlie modern civilization. Speaking in scientific language, then this term refers to methods of working with arrays of information, their transmission using communication tools.
General development trends
In general, this sphere is subject to almost every second changes and extremely rapid development. Every minute, industry leaders create new technologies that predetermine the development of all of humanity for years to come. Moreover, the country's prestige at the international level is largely determined by the development of ICT. This means that the software being produced, as well as control over the flow of information, allows us to determine the development vector of our own economy and to outstrip competitors in this field.
Even the most basic economic studies quickly proved that there is a direct link between the development of ICT and the well-being of the economy of a state. The development of communication technologies provides all the opportunities for the rapid growth of production and other industries. In addition, if the country has developed an appropriate industry, then it easily attracts foreign investment, which has a beneficial effect on the general economic condition.
Priority areas of industry development in the country
Currently, multiple government decisions enshrined the desire to become world leaders in the field of ICT. This means that the development of broadband Internet access, LTE-format communications and others was finally recognized as a priority. All this in the future will help create a sustainable platform for the following:
- A sharp improvement in telecommunication capabilities, which allows you to quickly develop various useful services within the country.
- The population will quickly receive all the information he is interested in first-hand.
- Remote regions will be able to participate in the country's social life much more actively.
- The effectiveness of managing industries and enterprises can increase significantly.
- The exchange of information between all participants in the business process will be significantly accelerated, which again will positively affect the general prospects for the development of the entire state.
- It is very important that the population and authorities will establish close interaction with each other.
- Educational (informatics ICT should be used everywhere), medical and legal services, which are possible due to universal access to the network, improve the general standard of living even in areas very remote from civilization.
Business promotion
All of the above greatly stimulates the development of forms of small and medium-sized businesses. Countries that have increased their level of ICT development in international rankings (this is important, as we have already found out) can count on serious international investment. By the way, an analysis of the level of its development is often used to identify the most problematic areas in politics.
Other indicators of ICT development in the country
The overall level of development of this industry in the country is expressed using the ICT access index. Its formation is affected by the quality and accessibility of network services and services, the cost of mobile communications and the general coverage of the territory of the state by base stations . These are the most easily identifiable and indicative factors that researchers pay attention to in the first place.
For example, how interconnected are school informatics and ICT? Grade 9 of a secondary school should already fully understand the basics of using computer technology in production, school and home. In addition, students need to be taught at least the basics of programming not on the mossy Visual Basic, but on something more modern. This is necessary so that they better understand the structure of commonly used applications. Without this, the state risks an army of young people whose knowledge will not extend beyond the finger-oriented interface of tablets.
In addition, the ICT use index is extremely important. This determines the number of users who really express a desire to use the features described above in their daily activities. It takes into account the number of computers that are constantly connected to the Internet, the availability of sites at government agencies, their frequency of attendance, as well as the general state of affairs in the field of high technology and communications.
The most important indicator is the environment that stimulates the development of ICT (Environment). In this vein, the state of the business and legal sphere, the presence of competition, groundwork in innovations, as well as the general condition of the entire business infrastructure, which would allow the widespread introduction of modern technologies in the daily life of society, are analyzed.
Human factor
An indicator characterizing the development of human potential (HDI) is also very important . This coefficient takes into account the general literacy of the population, the level of education and literacy, which is calculated, taking into account also the total life expectancy. Thus, the HDI is great for assigning a country an index of “developing” or “developed”.
Closely related to this indicator is also the index of general technical competence of people (ICT Skills), which shows the level of technical literacy of the society. It should be noted right away that information and communication technologies are simply impossible and pointless to develop if the country simply does not have enough at least the most tech-savvy users.
The state of the industry in our country. Development priorities
Our country is currently repeating the same trends as the rest of the world: the level of implementation of high-speed Internet is growing rapidly; the demand for providing digital content is significantly increasing, and this is not only about books, films and music, but also about educational programs and services. This indicates that information and communication technologies in our country are gradually reaching a fundamentally different level.
According to the Ministry of Communications and Communications, all of these areas should become a priority in the development of the entire Russian communications industry. Over the years, a specialized IT department has finally emerged in our country dealing with high-tech problems. Its experts say that the high-tech industry in our country is less than 4% of total GDP, which is an unacceptably small indicator on a global scale.
In this case, the use of ICT should be encouraged and encouraged as much as possible, since it is vital for us to catch up with the industry.
General trends
Only in 2012, the cost of communication services gave the world market $ 1.72 trillion. Our direction shows steady growth, in many respects it is much ahead of foreign countries. Last year, global industry growth exceeded 7%.
Market Volumes and Profitability
In 2011, in our country, the market for information services reached 891 billion rubles. Revenues of Internet providers amounted to 199.6 billion rubles. (only according to official data). In addition, the public sector spends more than 45 billion rubles to receive such services. in year. The consumer segment provides approximately 78% of the profits from the provided Internet connection services.
The mobile communications market is growing just at a titanic pace, far ahead of even many industrial enterprises. Only in 2011, and only (!) For voice communications did they receive 767.9 billion rubles from subscribers, while Rostelecom's revenue in the same field amounted to only 291.7 billion rubles.
High Speed Internet Access
Strange as it may seem, to date, the spread of broadband Internet in Moscow and St. Petersburg is actually similar to this indicator in the largest cities in the world: for example, in 2010 Moscow was already ahead of Berlin by 14%. Only in the Moscow region at that time at least 80% of the total population regularly used the Internet.
In the whole country, this figure is many times worse. So, only 39% of all houses in the regions are connected to the network, and 38% (8.3 million households) are exclusively in large cities with a population of more than a million people. In addition, the use of ICT in lessons in rural schools in some cases is still a big question, because due to the deterioration of the lines there simply is not access to the Internet.
Process challenges
Despite this, the speed of introducing the Internet into everyday life is growing, and the profit of providers is increasing by about 12% per year. During the Olympics, this figure approached 23%.
Alas, the Internet connection of each subsequent locality is becoming increasingly difficult. Soon it is planned to create a register of settlements in which there is no normal connection to the World Wide Web. It is very pleasing that they also plan to establish a public reception room, in which they could quickly consider all such issues.
World organizations that analyze the state of the ITC say that our state is significantly behind in this matter. Thus, approximately 70% of all households in Europe are connected to the network, while in the United States this figure is more than 80%. The leader among all countries is China, where today more than 200 million households can go online.
Prospects
So what are the prospects for the development of ICT in our country? Oh, they are just huge! The fact is that today the principles of the widespread introduction of computer technologies in the production and everyday life are laid down in
state programs .
It requires a huge number of young and educated specialists who could manage all this. Training begins at school. So, today a lesson with the use of ICT can be held in almost any rural school, although only five or six years ago one could only dream about it.