Dear Ljubomir,

Thank you for notes. I agree with you that my data is really “different in two or three months due to the falling prices of the internet access solutions” and that “NOW is the very moment for us to prepare for it”.

The data I provided are from our research “Survey and Analysis of the Consumer Driven Demand for Telecommunication Services in Bulgaria” (September – December 2005) (Zhelyu Vladimirov, Olya Harizanova, Krastu Mirski).

Particularly:

- The proportion of firms with Internet connection (our research - total 58%) is lower than the registered by the last report “E-Bulgaria” (between 70 and 82% of the businesses and 78% of the computers there has Internet connection as of January 2006). This difference is due to the high proportion of micro-firms in our sample (63%). It needs to be pointed out that the proportion of micro-firms of all businesses in Bulgaria is nearly 91%. To illustrate the above: according to our survey 79% of the businesses (without the micro-firms) have Internet access, while 77% of the SMEs (without the micro-firms) have Internet access. In total, 44% have high-speed connection, without the micro-firms the proportion raises to 56%. The proportion of SMEs (without micro-firms) with high-speed connection is 55%.

But however, in my opinion it is important to understand that the Internet availability (connection) is a firs step; the second step is utilize Internet (how citizens and firms utilize Information society, how they use online service). That’s why you are right; we must be ready to the second step.