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Macedonia would stay at the bottom of the list of internet usage with 4.9% access to information technology as long as Government protects Telecom, comment internet providers. Despite the market is being liberalised, Telecom still remains the biggest internet provider. It covers 90% of the market while the rest 10% are covered by the internet providers. The situation will be the same upon the moment when the country would get interested in development of information society

“The Government wants to promote itself that it is very interested in development of information technology. But, in fact, the Government as a stakeholder in Telecom protects the telecommunication company blinded by the money that receive as dividend and does not care about the position of Macedonia regarding internet usage, what are the reasons for bad figures and what should be done,” said internet providers.

They add that the citizens have no fault about the bad image of Macedonia regarding to information technology since if the surfing price is suitable, every citizen will afford the pleasure of surfing. Internet providers accuse Telecom that it offers internet at a price that is not economically logical. On the other hand, Telecom is the only provider that offers high speed internet or ADSL. Other providers cannot sell ADSL because they cannot reach an agreement with Telecom about the wholesale price which they consider that is very high and unrealistic. Telecom said that the fundamental reason why they cannot reach an agreement with other providers about ADSL is the small profit margin which is unacceptable for providers.

"We do not avoid cooperation with internet providers. We want ADSL penetration to be increased but it is up to their business decision,” said Dejan Siljanovski, Telecom’s regulative executive director.

Trying to increase the number of internet users, providers started to cooperate with cable operators and started to offer cable internet. In the last few months the interest for cable internet is growing and apart from Skopje it is available in Veles, Kichevo, Kavadarci and Ohrid. But providers’ expectations are far from being realized.

Cable operators do not have broad network, i.e. network that is available everywhere. On the other hand, the price of equipment for cable internet that users should pay is 3.000 denars which is too high for many people. That is the reason why there are only 700 cable internet users in Skopje, said internet providers.