The Supply Side of ICT

This chapter examines the public-private differential in the supply side of ICT in Sudanese universities. Our findings in this chapter provide further evidence in support of the second hypothesis on the incidence of structural change in the demand for ICT, in particular from the supply side. Our results support the well-investigated argument concerning the structural change in the structure of the supply of ICT market from monopoly to monopolistic competition. We find that the increasing number of operating companies has been in favour of consumers not only by increasing availability of ICT services but also by offering consumers wider options for selection from the different ICT supplier companies. Moreover, the increasing competition between different ICT supplier companies led to improvement in the efficiency of ICT services, low or cheap prices and introduction of price discrimination mechanism. Our findings show dynamic evolution and structural change in the supplier companies. In our view the justification of this shift or structural change is probably related to preference of certain characteristics of the supplier company. Our results are consistent with the conventional stylised facts in the theoretical literature concerning the rationality of consumers. Our findings on the methods of connection to the Internet indicate a significant shift from connection via dial-up by telephone to connection by ADSL. For instance, we find that from all the staff’s perspective, for the majority, the most widely used and common way for connection with the Internet is through ADSL, which is used by near to half of all respondents, this is followed by connection by wireless, which is used by near to one third of all respondents and finally by fixed telephone which is used by near to one fifth of all respondents. Further evidence in support of the hypothesis on the incidence of structural change in the demand for ICT can be elaborated from our findings, which imply that from all the staff’s perspective, for the majority, in both the home and office, mobile telephone, computer and Internet are often widely used, while fixed telephone is less often used. Our results indicate that from all the respondents’ perspective ICT is often and widely accessed in both the home and office, while Internet café and telecommunication offices are less often widely used compared to both home and offices as common locations for the use of ICT. In particular, both computer and Internet are very often used in the office or work place, this is probably because they are offered free of charge for the respondents in public and private Sudanese universities. The major policy recommendation from our results in this chapter is the improvement of availability, efficiency and sustainability of ICT supply.