Rattanak Te
Title: 'Internet Penetration and Optimal Policy for Improving Connectivity in Cambodia'
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Drechsler
Opponent: Prof. Dr. Robert Krimmer
Defense: 5 September 2014
Abstract: Cambodia is one of the least developed countries (LDC) among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Moving towards 2015, for which ASEAN has set itself the goal to become a more unified community, Cambodia needs to catch up with the other member countries in several respects. One of these is Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which is generally acknowledged as a key driver and gateway for economic and social transformation. In Cambodia, intranet, internet and cell-phone networks have been created rather recently, and connectivity, the principal access condition for ICT, is still comparatively low. The aim of the current thesis is to, first, find out how the situation of connectivity is in Cambodia and, second, how it compares to (some of) the other ASEAN counties and some further regional success stories. The next step will be to investigate current government policies to improve connectivity, and then to compare them with the reference countries mentioned before, based on secondary data. The Indochina region will be specifically focused on. These include, e.g., Laos and Myanmar (Burma) as comparable countries, and Vietnam as a model and potential benchmark. This exercise will result in benchmarking for contextually embedded policy-learning options so as to pave the way for Cambodian ICT development.
Keywords: Connectivity, Cambodia, ICT, ASEAN
