Central and Eastern Europe is a major
net exporter of engineers, programmers, systems analysts, Web
designers, and concepts analysts.
Internet penetration in these countries - even in the most
wired - is still very low by European standards, let alone
American ones. The trauma of communism left them with decrepit
and rarefied infrastructure, a prohibitive, extortionist, and
skewed cost structure, computer illiteracy, inefficient
competition, insufficient investment capital, and entrenched
luddism (e.g., computer phobia). Foreign operators often
exacerbate the situation. ArmenTel, the Greek owned monopoly
in Armenia, keeps Internet access costs prohibitively high,
ignoring court actions by the government and loud complaints
by disgruntled customers.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (in its report
"Bridging the Digital Divide: Internet Access in Central and
Eastern Europe") says that, as contrasted with India (or
Malaysia), the countries of the CEE did not invest in
computerizing their schools, public libraries, and higher
education institutions, or in subsidizing private computer-
training colleges.
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