Friday, 18 February 2011
Steve Finch
The Phnom Penh Post
IT goes without saying that increasing government efforts to block internet access to certain websites represent a serious affront on freedom of speech in Cambodia.
From a business perspective, the move marks the latest blow for a beleaguered telecommunications and internet industry which in recent years has suffered repeatedly from incompetence and ill-advised state intrusion.
Failure by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to mediate on pricing and connectivity in the mobile phone sector left companies in a state of confusion in 2009, sapping confidence in the government’s ability to regulate.
Then last year a number of internet service providers revealed they had stalled plans to roll-out WiMax internet after the government issued multiple licences on the same bandwidth, thereby threatening millions of dollars worth of investments while slowing down the expansion of internet connectivity in Cambodia.
In recent weeks some of the same companies have faced a difficult choice on censorship that creates an altogether new set of problems for ISPs.
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