Overview October 1999: Czech Republic

The following text covers organizations and persons playing the key roles in the Information Society development in the Czech Republic. It is divided into sections describing governmental organizations (including key ministries and other institutions) and non-governmental organizations (including industry associations, professional organizations and individual companies).

1. Governmental organizations

1.1 Government and Ministries

From among the ministries, activities of which concern the development of the Information Society, Ministry of Transport and Communication (Minister Antonin Peltram), Ministry of Education and Youth (Minister Eduard Zeman), Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minister Miroslav Gregr), Ministry of Justice (Minister Otakar Motejl), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minister Jan Kavan), Ministry of Interior (Minister Vaclav Grulich) and Ministry of Finance (Pavel Mertlik) can be named.

On of the most important milestones of development of the Information Society in the sphere of communication of the state administration with the public, has been publishing of the Index of Commerce on the Internet (took place when Justice Minister Vlasta Parkanova was still in the office). The official tool of the governmental communication strategy for interconnection of the Czech Republic with the EU is www.euroskop.cz, organized in cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with other ministries. The Ministry of Education and Youth cooperates in implementation of RUFIS conferences, which deal with the role of universities in the future information society. The public part of the ARES meta-register, which constitutes the superstructure of the Index of Commerce, Economic Entities index, Business index and VAT index and Consumer TaxPayers, has been put into test operation on the WWW server of the Ministry of Finance.

All ministries have their WWW service, information about the government and the government office is available at www.vlada.cz . The legislative power in the Czech Republic is performed by the Parliament, which constitutes of two chambers. Their WWW services are available at www.psp.cz and www.senat.cz .

1.1.1 Ministry of Transport and Communication

The Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications will retain the following competencies:

• creation of the National Telecommunications Policy and following of its implementation (after approval by the Government of the Czech Republic)
• creation of legal regulations in the telecommunication sphere. Preparation and amending and implementing legal regulation and decrees prepared by the regulatory body,
• international relations in the field of telecommunications on the level of Governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations,
• integration into the European structures,
• determining of the principles and main policies of the state regulation of telecommunications,
• strategy of the frequency spectrum utilization,

1.1.2 Governmental Council for State Information Policy

Established on October 19, 1998. The State Information Policy was prepared under the supervision of this Committee, and was approved by the Government on May 31, 1999. The Governmental Council for State Information Policy has a permanent working group to implement the decisions and evaluate and measure achieved results. The Council also intends to form an advisory body named Czech Information Forum. It would gather 57 personalities representatives of all relevant parts of the society (including minorities, media etc.), to provide necessary dialogue with the public and discuss various issues related to the Information society.

1.2 Other institutions

Among other institutions, activities of which substantially influence the development of the Information Society in the Czech Republic, are State Information System Office, Czech Telecommunication Office (under the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications), Czech Statistic Office, Industrial Ownership Office and Office for Protection of Economic Competition.

• State Information System Office (USIS)

Havelkova 22, 130 00 Prague 3 Tel. +420 2 21008111Fax: +420 2 24221484
E-mail:posta@usiscr.cz www.usiscr.cz

In 1996, the State Information System Office was established, originally with the goal to implement a unified Information system of all the state authorities. This goal was later changed, due to the fact that most state authorities already had an information system of their own, and starting to build one from scratch proved to be a wrong idea. The main goal of the State Information System Office was later changed to "coordinating" the interconnection of various independent information systems of the state authorities. Today, the State Information System Office is involved in several other activities covering the area of Information Society - for example, it hosts the National Coordination Center for Y2K, acts as a partner for many EU activities, coordinates the development of e-commerce etc.

• Czech Telecommunication Office (CTU)

The mission of the CZECH TELECOMMUNICATION OFFICE comprises, above all, of providing of the observation of the Telecommunications Act along with legal regulations issued to execute the Act and regulations related, i.e. to decide on the rights and duties of physical and legal persons within the telecommunications sector. CTU is a constituent part of the system, which regulates telecommunications in the Czech Republic. Klimentská 27
225 02 PRAHA 1 Phone: +420 2 24004111 Fax: +420 2 24225890 E-mail: info@ctu.cz

2. Non-governmental organizations

2.1 Industry associations and professional organisations

Below, organizations are mentioned in the historical order (per date of establishing). Apart from these organizations, the chambers of commerce are worth mentioning, which provide the public with number of information services via the Internet, and the alternative project GEMMA IX in the field of peering among Internet providers.

2.1.1Czech Society for System Integration (CSSI)

Since 1994, CSSI has been associating providers of information technologies and informatic services, organizations that are utilizing such information technologies, consulting companies and universities and colleges. The society supports education activities focused at the sphere of system integration, and it organizes professional seminars and conferences on current issues of development of the information systems. The CSSI is active in all regions through its regional sections. The society publishes the System integration quarterly for its members. More information available at www.cssi.cz

2.1.2 Internet Providers Consortium (NIX)

The consortium of legal persons NIX associates Internet Service Providers in the Czech Republic with the objective of interconnecting their networks. The memorandum of association was signed on August, 30th 1996. Its statutory body is a three-member Executive Committee. Under its articles of association, the highest body of the association is the Membership Meeting. The association has constructed a Neutral Internet Exchange node called NIX.CZ (Neutral Internet eXchange) in the Czech Republic, which interconnects the Internet networks of the individual Czech providers. Their interconnections are subject to the terms of Operating Rules of NIX.CZ. More information on www.nix.cz

2.1.3 Content Providers Association (APO)

APO has been established in 1997 with the aim to associate the providers of content of the Internet network. The main directions within the program are the issues of operating and commercial utilization of advertising on the web, legal protection of the APO members in the currently lawless Internet environment, cooperation with legislative bodies, advisory and initiative activities during creation of legal conditions for operating of web pages, promotion and popularizing of the Internet among the general public as well as within the business sphere. More information available at www.apo.cz

2.1.4 Consortium for Information Society (SPIS)

It is a professional association of 39 companies from the sphere of information and communication technologies, the aim of which is promoting of the Information Society. It has existed since March 1998 and it represents the Czech Republic (as the only post-Communist country) in EUROBIT - European Association of Manufacturers of Business Machines and Information Technology Industry. SPIS organizes discussion clubs, to which representatives of the Government and Parliament are invited. SPIS is also one of the initiators of one of the two versions of a draft of the Electronic Signature Act. More information available at www.spis.cz.

2.1.5 Center for Electronic Commerce (CEO)

CEO has been founded in November 1998 as an independent professional platform, allowing closer cooperation of individuals and organizations from the commercial sphere, state administration and university institutions, involved in information economy. CEO represents the Czech Republic in European Telework Development Initiative and, in cooperation with similar centers abroad, it provides information support for Internet and E-commerce projects within the framework of the 5^th Framework Program of the EU. CEO operates a hosted E-conference group VIP Forum, and, apart from cooperation with VUT (Brno University of Technology) in implementation of the ESIS project, it also participated in Czech Republic’s participation in the First Tuesday initiative (connects venture capital with promising Internet projects). More information available at www.e-commerce.cz.

2.1.6 Electronic Commerce Association (APEK)

APEK associates particularly operators of Internet shops, with the aim of promoting their services as well as the whole field of e-commerce. It also aims at helping with improving and standardizing of services, provided by these entities, and creation and enforcing of professional codex. The main project is certification of the Internet shops based on certification rules. More information available at www.apek.cz.

2.2 Individual companies

2.2.1 Telecommunication sector

The public telecommunications operator is SPT Telecom (its name will change to Cesky Telecom from 1.1.2000), which has a monopoly for providing of long distance and international voice services. Two GSM mobile networks are operated by EuroTel (subsidiary company of SPT, operates also NMT mobile network) and Radiomobil which has firstly introduced the phone-phone type of Internet telephony service in the country. Cesky Mobil company has just won the tender for third mobile operator in the Czech Republic.www.telecom.cz , www.eurotel.cz , www.radiomobil.cz

2.2.2 Internet Service providers

The current situation on the Internet access market is reflected in the fact that Internet users can use (in certain way) preferential tariff (Internet 99 has been provided after wide public protests) but it brings significant savings only for longer calls and calls out of peak time (weekends, evenings). The providers have no share of increased earnings of the monopoly telecommunication operator, to whom they bring data transfer impulses.

CESNET is historically the first provider of Internet connection. Today, Cesnet is a professional association of legal persons (its members are universities and academic institutions). It is dealing with the Czech part of the European TEN 34 project – the high speed Internet connection for academic and research purposes. After successful advocacy of the TEN-34 CZ project, CESNET has become a direct member of the QUANTUM consortium, which operates the new TEN-155 network. CESNET is also one of the two entities in the Czech Republic, offering the computer-phone type of Internet telephony services (the other one is Globe Internet).

Eunet is one of the most important commercial Internet providers. It has also bee appointed by the Domain Administrator, CZ NIC company, to operate the technical solution for allocation and registration of the 2^nd level domains. Other largest Internet providers are Internet On Line (division of SPT Telecom, with the largest market share), PVT, IBM, Czech On Line and Contactel. The last two entities provide free Internet connection. www.cesnet.cz, www.eunet.cz, www.pvt.net , www.iol.cz, www.vol.cz, www.contactel.cz, www.nic.cz, www.globe.cz

2.2.3 Payment infrastructure

One of the major E-commerce pioneers in the CR is Expandia Banka, which has been providing Internet banking for more than a year. Its project eCity attracted tens of thousands Net users to play a game teaching them E-commerce principles. Komercni Banka is one of the partners introducing SET standard in the country. CCS is a company with a large base of CCS cardholders, offering another channel for safe on-line payments. www.ebanka.cz, www.koba.cz, www.ccs.cz

2.2.4 Systems and Applications

Strong positions in the sphere of e-commerce have domestic companies, such as Inet (another of the partners of the SET pilot project in the Czech Republic, and operator of the largest Internet shop in the Czech Republic Shop.cz), Computer Press publishing house (operator of the largest Internet bookshop Vltava, also offers free rental of Internet shop solution for third parties), Zoner (operator of the most widely spread solution for Internet shops rental) and BrainSystems (specializing in business infosystems among companies, CCS payment solution software developer, operator of Internet shops and Internet shops directory). The most important vendors in the sphere of corporate E-commerce systems infrastructure are IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. APP Group, the Czech system integrator, has currently been implementing the project of making the real estate cadastre available on the Internet. www.inet.cz, www.cpress.cz, www.zoner.cz, www.brainsys.cz, www.ibm.cz, www.microsoft.cz, www.oracle.cz, www.sap.cz, www.app.cz

2.2.5 Content providers

This category includes the traditional media, which provide their WWW service as an important part of added value, as well as providers of content, which is only available on the Internet.

Among the traditional media it is particularly the state Czech Television (broadcasting weekly Internet program Zavinac) and the Czech Radio (broadcasting also via Internet). Further, it is Mlada Fronta publishing house, which complements its daily with a news server iDnes. From among the professionally focused publishers should be mentioned in the first place - Softwarove noviny (publishing the monthly of the same name and also Inside a Digital revue). Other professional focused publishers are, e.g., Profit (one of the first provider of information for business people on WWW, initiator of the March Internet campaign), Hospodárské noviny (complementing their political and economic daily with their iHNed information service) and IDG (e.g. Computer World, PC World).

As portals can be characterize server farms of companies, such as Seznam (the most popular directory Seznam and search engine Kompas, news, on-line maps), Atlas and MIA (Internet media agency and operator of Trafika service, offering full text search of the most important Czech dailies, weeklies and monthlies). Very popular, and also frequently visited, are servers, such as Mobil (focused at mobile communication) and on-line daily by Ondrej Neff - Neviditelný pes (Invisible Dog).

The volume of advertising on the Internet in 1999 is estimated to CZK 50 million. The analysis of attendance of the WWW servers is carried out by DCCI a Acron Communications companies.www.ct.cz, www.cro.cz, www.idnes.cz, www.softnov.cz, www.profit.cz, www.ihned.cz, www.idg.cz www.seznam.cz, www.atlas.cz, www.mia.cz, www.mobil.cz, www.pes.eunet.cz www.dcci.cz, www.monitor.cz

3. Other

There are a number of other entities contributing to the Information Society development. These are, particularly, the BMI association, organizer of the national campaign "March – The Internet Month", the traditional organizer of the international IT fair Invex (BVV), EISF, Deloitte & Touche and IDC consulting companies, GfK and Median agencies, etc. As far as the academic sphere is concerned, Prague University of Economics (CSSI co-founder and organizer of many specialized IT seminars) and Brno University of Technology (Virtual Information Park operator and CEO co-founder) can be mentioned. The professional public also highly appreciates the archive of articles by Jiri Peterka, a freelance journalist and pioneer of the Information Society idea in the Czech Republic. www.brezen.cz, www.bvv.cz, www.eisf.cz, www.idc.com, www.deloitte.cz, www.gfk.cz, www.median.cz, www.vse.cz, www.vutbr.cz, www.archiv.czech.net