1.3 Sectoral Absorption

Sectoral Absorption recognizes the differing impacts of the degrees to which four major Internet-using sectors of society have taken up the technology: the academic, commercial, health, and public (government) sectors. While the sectors describe the major social and economic divisions in society, none are homogeneous. Personal use is not considered in this metric. The sectors are

• Academic: Includes university education and research, and excludes primary or secondary education centers.

• Commercial: Includes distribution, finance, manufacturing, retail and services.

• Health: Includes hospitals, clinics, research centers, and physicians and practitioners.

• Public: Includes the central government, provincial and local governments, public companies, and the military.

Internet use within each sector is rated as rare, moderate, or common, according to the guidelines listed in Table 1.6. To rate the country as a whole, each sector with a rare rating is assigned one point, each moderate sector two points, and each common rating three points. The overall rating for Sector Absorption is derived from the matrix shown in Table 1.7.

 

Table 1.6: Assessing Sectoral Absorption.

Condition	Rare (1 point)	Moderate (2 points)	Common (3 points)
Sector
Academic	<10% have leased-line	10-90% have leased-line	>90% have leased-line
	Internet connectivity	Internet connectivity	Internet connectivity
Commercial	<10% have Internet	10-90% have	>90% have
	servers	Internet servers	Internet servers
Health	<10% have leased-line	10-90% have leased-line	>90% have leased-line
	Internet connectivity	Internet connectivity	Internet connectivity
Public	<10% have Internet	10-90% have	>90% have
	servers	Internet servers	Internet servers

 

 

Table 1.7: Sectoral Absorption Rating.

Sectoral point total	Absorption dimension rating
0	Level 0 - Non-existent
1-4	Level 1 - Rare
5-7	Level 2 - Moderate
8-9	Level 3 - Common
10-12	Level 4 - Widely used

 

The academic sector in Iran continues to dominate the Iranian Internet in terms of the number of organizations connected and the number of hosts registered. This sector also dominates in terms of the number of users. At present over 90% of the country's universities are connected. According to recently announced plans, 100 research centers and universities, representing the sum total in Iran, will be connected via high speed links by September 1999 (this translates to common absorption in the academic sector - 3 points).

While the presence of Iranian commercial and government organizations on the Internet has increased noticeably, we estimate that fewer than 10 percent of the country's companies or government agencies have Internet connections (translating to rare absorption - 1 point).

The health sector remains almost totally absent, the exception being health-related academic institutions and a few hospitals (translating to rare absorption - 1 point).

Overall therefore, sectoral absorption is estimated at barely moderate (5 points).