Isn't it time?

I read a report yesterday that CYTA (Cyprus Telecommunications) would be rolling out 4G mobile services in December, as it was trying to catch up to its competitors who have already launched the service. MTN and Primtel have been offering the service for months which puts Cyta at a disadvantage.

But by golly where does that leave us here in the north? We have two mobile telephone operators on the island TURKCELL and VODAFONE TELSIM both still implementing 3G services and even that is not to the satisfaction of their customers; there are times when the mobile phone doesn’t service in the house as its ‘out of coverage area’. The companies like all mobile companies, offers packages and packages of deals with so many talking hours and so many messages to go with it; different promos to entice you to pick them yet at the end of the month when you see your bill you realise that maybe the package wasn’t as advantageous as you thought.

CYTA is being ‘slated’ for not keeping up with the times. Really?? At least they are on the road to implementing a service most of Europe has been using for the past couple of years, even though their competitors beat them to it.

The infrastructure is ready in the TRNC; so where is the law to go with it? Oh yes that’s right… No one has written it yet. Committees have to actually convene, sit down and put something together and pass it through parliament. Promises of launching the service have been making the headlines for months. Promises… unfortunately that has all it has surmounted to.

Just last week I carried a story based on the biggest cybercrime of child pornography in Cyprus. The Cyprus Police Office for Combatting Cyber Crime in the south is called upon every day to tackle such issues. Why have we not heard of such a unit in the TRNC or of what cybercrimes top our lists? That is because there is no Information Technologies law in the TRNC that's why. Anyone can access any website they want here and not even have to pay the penalty for it. So why is there no law? Scroll up the page and please refer to the paragraph about 4G mobile services and people actually having to do some work, to find out why.

I can hear the sceptics now… ‘But we are not recognised here in the TRNC, we don’t have the funds to do this, there are more important issues pending than this…' I would like to ask: What does recognition or funding have to do with people actually sitting down and doing their jobs? I am not a person eloquent in politics or political sciences… To me everything is black and white; it’s either yes or no. Every time there is a change in the government and there have been a few changes over the past couple of years, things of great importance like information technologies are pushed back and back. Don’t you think it was time we actually did something rather than idly make empty promises to the people? Isn’t it time politicians started doing some real work instead of appointing and reappointing heads of departments or units just because they are not part of a particular party? Just saying…