|
News Release
October 2, 2000
The Brunei Darussalam
Economic Council today announced plans to expand and upgrade the BruNet
Internet service to meet an anticipated surge in demand during the APEC
meetings in November as well as to accommodate more subscribers in the
long term.
The expansion and
upgrading project is valued at two million dollars, BDEC
Director-General Wahab Juned told a news conference.
The council also
announced an 11.3 million dollar project to supply computers to
government primary and secondary schools throughout the country with a
goal of ultimately achieving a ratio of one computer for every five
students at the secondary level.
"Both projects are
part of the government's strategy to upgrade the information technology
infrastructure which is to serve as a foundation for sustainable
economic growth," Mr. Wahab said. The immediate injection of funds
is also part of the government's short-term economic recovery programme,
he added.
BruNet upgrading
With 16,000 subscribers
currently, BruNet expects an upsurge in traffic coinciding with the
arrival of several thousand delegates and journalists in November for
the APEC meetings, involving economic leaders, ministers and top
business executives.
Tenders for the project
have already been advertised, and the expansion and upgrading are
scheduled to be fully implemented by November.
In the longer term, the
project should meet the needs of an expected 24,000 subscribers by the
end of 2001 and enable the system to accommodate the introduction of
more value-added services, BDEC said.
Computers for schools
The school computer
project is intended to give both students and teachers basic IT training
and to promote the use of computer facilities as education tools.
It will also help
stimulate activities for small and medium-sized enterprises in the
construction, IT, supply services, training and maintenance sectors,
BDEC said.
"The project will
help create a new computer-literate generation and play an important
role in the preparation of human capital to assist the country in
meeting the challenge of the new economy," Mr. Wahab said.
For further information,
please contact BDEC by phone (673-2) 655301 or fax (673-8) 655276.
|