Increase in Internet users in Yemen, but mostly for entertainment [Archives:2007/1109/Local News]

By: Hamed Thabet
SANA'A, Dec. 4 ) The number of Internet cafes has increased from 822 at the beginning of the year to 886 by the end of September, according to Amer Haza'a, General Manager for Internet Service at the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology and Communications.

He added, “This brought about an increase in users too, from 146,069 to about 194,943 subscribers. Furthermore, the number of ADSL subscribers reached 8,454 this year from the previous 2,781 users.”

According to the ministry, the increase of Internet users is due to communication and information technology projects that have been set up and completed that facilitate Internet service.

The majority of Internet subscribers are Internet cafes, followed by companies, and lastly private users at their homes. Average Internet use in Yemen is between 3 to 4 hours per day.

Chat and games

The increase in demand of Internet use is visible from increasing influxes of people in local Internet cafes. Most people use the Internet to chat, listen to music and play games.

Mohammed Lutf, the owner of an Internet cafe in Sana'a, noted, “Sometimes students use the Internet for their researches, but this happens rarely.” According to Lutf, the use of Internet varies during the day, as most morning customers use it for sending e-mails and browsing the web, and a minority for stock market trading.

In the afternoon, young kinds between 7 and 16 visit the cafes to play games and listen to music. But evenings are when the majority of users will be seen, when young adults and people of all ages use the Internet for chatting, playing games and visiting various entertainment websites, sometimes until the early hours of the morning.

Mohammed Hassan, 24, admitted that he just uses the Internet to chat and play games. “I'm not interested in anything except games and chatting,” he said. On the other hand,

Faez Omidfar, a 22 year-old college student at Sana'a University, uses the web to stay up to date on issues related to his studies at the dental college.

Desirable sites youths usually go to are: Hotmail, Yahoo, Hi5, Face book, and music sites. There are ten computers in Mohammed's shop, and he confirmed, “Almost none of my customers come and ask for any scientific or educational site. The only thing that they ask is how to open the net, how to use chat rooms and how to download music.”

New users and special treatment for females

More and more Yemenis have started using the Internet to communicate with family members living abroad. “Since my brother traveled to study in Malaysia last month, I needed to learn how to use the Internet in order to stay in touch,” said Ali Al-Maznaei, 23.

With the increase in Internet users, the necessity of providing special rooms for female users arose. Some Internet cafes devised a separate room for female customers. In fact, according to Internet Cafe owner Ali Al-Zobaidi, girls are given special treatment and priority. “Even if a guy was waiting his turn for a computer and then a girl comes later on, she has the right to use the computer before him. Ladies first,” he smiled.

Despite the increasing demand for Internet cafes, shop supervisors keep a careful watch on users so that they do not use the service for porn. Most porn sites are blocked by the General Assembly of Telecommunication, yet some clever users find ways to view the censored sites. According to the assembly no other censorship takes place; however, several political websites have been intermittently blocked, especially those of opposition parties.

The Internet was introduced in Yemen in 1996, and at that time there were only 6000 users, but now people are getting more acquainted with the net, and there is a possibility that the number of users will reach 200,000 in the near future. However, many people in Yemen still don't know what the word 'Internet' means.

Yemen was considered one of the countries of the world with low proliferation of computers and the Internet, which were limited due to social and economic problems. At present, 'TeleYemen' and 'Yemen Net' are the two companies that provide Internet services in Yemen.
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