July 2000

Palestine Territories Update Memo

The following report outlines new developments in the past three months and the state of on-going developments.

1. Introduction and Summary

The regulatory environment may be characterised as renewed attempts to adjust the general telecommunication regulatory framework. On one hand there has been a public campaign centred on a "call of appeal" to President Yasser Arafat, conducted by ITSig (Information Technology Special Interest Group). The members of ITSig were asked to forward a letter (either by fax or e-mail) to the President requesting concrete steps towards the liberalisation of the telecommunication market so that Palestine will be better positioned to counter the expected advancements in neighbouring countries. This move has been well received by the President. A clear directive was issued to Mr Massri, Minister of Economy and Trade, to follow up on the issue and report back clear recommendations for action.

As a result, Mr Massri decided to call upon the Steering Committee of the "Study for the Restructuring of the Telecommunication Sector in Palestine", conducted by KPMG for the Palestinian Economic Council For Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), in order to discuss ways of updating the recommendations of the study taking into consideration the developments in the sector over the past few years.

On the other hand, PITA (Palestinian Information Technology Association) continues to negotiate and push, Mr. Imad Al-Falouji, Minister of Post and Telecommunications, to eliminate the burdening licensing procedures required for using value-added services. Several meetings were conducted in an attempt to reduce the licensing fees required for the importation and sale of business telephone systems, cellular terminals and other telecommunication equipment. In addition, PITA continues to campaign for the removal of licensing fees required annually for users of any leased line circuits.

2. Information Society Policy

2.1 Telecommunications and Internet

A Palestinian Team and International Experts to Prepare a Study to setup the Palestine Top Level Domain (.ps)

Following the registration of the Palestinian top-level-domain (TLD), ".ps", a Palestinian team joined by two international experts will start the process of assessing the requirements for setting up the institutional and technical structures needed to regulate and operate the newly awarded domain. These experts have been commissioned by USAID and brought in by Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) in co-operation with the Government Computer Centre (GCC) of the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.

The mission is expected to:

• Produce an independent assessment of the business, marketing and financial plans needed for an initial 3 years of the Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD).
• Muster the needed consensus on the best institutional setting to respond to all stakeholders, including defining the role and responsibilities of an oversight body that will run the domain name.
• Identify standards and best practices, including technical specifications for both hardware and software, as well as defining options available to manage the domain.
• Identify gaps in the laws and define the regulations (focus on the Intellectual Property Rights) within Palestine needed to establish world-class best practices in the operation of the Top Level Domain (TLD).

The Palestinian team consists of Dr. Ghassan Qadah (Administrative Contact of the ps domain)-GCC/MOPIC, Dr. Yasser Doleh (Technical Contact of the ps domain), Dr. Najeh Jasrawi - Birzeit University, Sam Bahour- IT Consultant and Omar Al-Sahili- DAI. The international experts, to arrive in early June, are prominent IT experts both in technical and institutional building. These experts are Dr. Robert Krause, Former Director of the US Commercial Office of Moscow, Former Director of International Trade in Digital Equipment Corp, and a Strategic IT Adviser to DAI's MAP (sector development) Program. The TLD expert Dr. Stefano Trumpy, is the Director of Italy’s TLD, Research Director of the Institute for Telematic Applications (IAT), and Italy’s Member Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR) and a renowned expert in this field.

To engage all parties involved in the ccTLD and discuss the different aspects of having and running a ccTLD, two workshops will be held with the following tentative times, namely:

• Workshop #1: "ccTLDs: What Does IT Take?". [Proposed: Monday, June 6, 2000]
• Workshop #2: "TLD Mission Findings". [Proposed: Wed, June 14, 2000]

In addition to the workshops, meetings with four focus groups (ISPs, Universities, PITA, and Government) are being organized. During this planning phase it has been agreed that no non-government domain names will be registered under .ps until the complete plan is in place.

3. International relationships and agreements

Israeli and Palestinian universities co-operation agreement on information technology.

A group of Israeli and Palestinian universities have signed a co-operation agreement on information technology, as part of a project backed by US-based Sun Microsystems. Under the project, Sun, the leader in the web server market, will equip three Palestinian universities - Al-Quds in Jerusalem, Al-Najah in Nablus and Al-Azhar in Gaza - with Shk2m ($480,000) worth of computer equipment. The company will also establish two centres for academic dialogue between the Palestinian institutions and Tel Aviv University and the Technion, Israel's leading technology academic institution.

Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian peace negotiator, praised the new project but said additional co-operation could only come when a final peace agreement was sealed. Mr. Sari Nusseiba, president of Al-Quds University, said that there is a very special need for the Palestinians to develop their IT skills. He added that the Palestinian economy needed at least 1,000 new computer scientists and engineers each year but universities were producing only 300 graduates a year.

Information technology could be a natural area for co-operation between the Palestinians, who have a limited IT infrastructure, and Israel, with its rapidly growing high-tech sector. However, co-operation has been limited. The most significant joint project to date is a small research and development centre in Ramallah backed by Siemens, the German electronics group.

Uri Savir, president of the Peres Centre for Peace, which helped organise the project, said he hoped the agreement would mark a new stage in Israeli-Palestinian co-operation.