Integrating information communication technologies (ICTs) into the fabric of our daily life is not an option. It is a necessity if Antigua and Barbuda is to rise to the First World standards and status.

With the advent of the Digital Era, Antigua and Barbuda must continue to develop as a knowledge-based society, in which knowledge represents an important national value.

The world is driven by revolutionary changes in information and communication technologies. Antigua cannot continue to exist on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide. We must close the digital divide.

Recognizing the potential of learning and knowledge as an enabler of economic development, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda recognizes that ICTs are rapidly transforming the way in which our country operates as part of the global community.

As the Sunshine Government continues to promote a set of policies designed to upgrade the intellectual capital of the Nation of Antigua and Barbuda, the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and Telecommunications has begun the process of ensuring the integration and adaptation of the state of the art information and communication technologies in all spheres of our daily life, including for example governance systems and law enforcement.

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda recognizes fully the social and economic opportunities that Information Communication Technologies can provide to the citizens. Indeed, part of the building of our national technological capability is the promotion of Antigua and Barbuda as a Regional Centre of Information Communication Technology Excellence.

ICT means different things to different people and by extension the government. We have e-Government and e-Governance, and there is also Internet Governance, all associated with ICT. This leads to different perspectives on agenda setting and priorities.

Some people would view ICT from what is called a techno-centric perspective. For them, ICT is about networks, wireless and landline communications. ICT for me and for a lot of people is about the Community, the ordinary consumer. It's about people, not technology and machines. We need, of course, to understand the technology but in the context of its application to national and individual priorities: These priorities include: 1. enhancing education opportunities; 2. making citizens more marketable when seeking employment; 3. developing teacher software tools so that more teachers can use technology to reduce the time spend on mundane chores and increase their time for teaching.

With APUA Telephones deciding to move forward on provisioning of Internet Services, I take it that APUA will no longer be hiding in the shadows of other providers.

I believe this marks the beginning of the repositioning and reestablishing of APUA Telephones at the forefront of the technological revolution. While it may have taken a little while in getting here, it is finally here.

Thanks to the unmistakable economic and technical advantages of the digital subscriber line technology, DSL, or iNet as APUA Telephones has called it, has become enormously popular as a broadband access system for data transmission in recent years.

Due to the ever larger data volumes on the public and private networks, more and more carriers are turning to technologies that can deliver high bandwidths, even in the access area.

Just a few short years ago, fiber-optic cables were still the only choice for end-to- end connections supporting top data rates. And yet the transformation from "fiber to the desktop" remains a costly and time-consuming process, due to limited or even non-existing infrastructure. Although from what I understand there is quite a bit of fiber now going throughout the country.

The other alternatives to iNet are still in the development stage, such as WLL (Wireless Local Loop). This is a method that covers the "last mile" using radio relay links. Even the use of coaxial cables, which in Germany have been employed nearly exclusively for unidirectional, broadband transmission of TV and radio signals, requires heavy investment in infrastructure. DSL has been the economical alternative for customers, one that enables APUA Telephones to use conventional copper telephone lines for digital broadband access.

Telecommunications companies, in particular the well established ones, have been investing enormous sums in an infrastructure for the promising data transmission and Internet segments of the market. However, most of their earnings still derive from voice transmission business. Thus, there is demand for solutions that deliver voice functionality and, at the same time, promise broadband expansion for future data transmission in the access area.

I-Net is the optimal choice here, since it supports both analog telephone lines (DSL over POTS) and Digital lines (DSL over ISDN).

As the internet continues to gain rapidly in popularity, many of today's telephone networks are reaching their limits under modem connections to Internet service providers (ISPs), often for hours at a time. Thus, there is a growing need to unburden networks by providing broadband DSL connections, some of which already are in place.

The advantages would be twofold: First, users can surf the internet at 12 times the speed of digital connections; secondly, the systems that have recently become available can use these high bandwidths for voice transmission as well.

For example, up to 30 telephone calls can be conducted simultaneously over a single DSL connection, but those are some of the things that APUA Telephones would not want us to know just yet.

The other advantages of I-Net:

• You can leave your internet connected open and still use the phone line for voice calls.
• The speed is much higher than a regular modem.
• I-Net doesn't necessarily require new wiring; it can use the phone line you already have.
• APUA Telephones also provides the modem as part of the installation.

And last but not least is the price, where else can you be logged on to the internet fro 24/7 and only pay $125.00. In spite of the fact that local phone calls are among the cheapest in the OECS, that can really add up and with this I-Net in less than 2 days you would have already recovered the cost of $125.00.

Congratulations to APUA Telephones on the launch of I-Net. I am confident that this will certainly be one of the "gap closing" mechanisms of ending the digital divide here in Antigua and Barbuda.