Lithuanian electronic communications sector

Straipsnyje tiriamos pagrindinės elektroninių ryšių sektoriaus plėtros tendencijos Lietuvoje. Daug dėmesio skinama fiksuoto ir judriojo ryšio bei internetinės prieigos segmentams. Analizuojamas socialinis-ekonominis šio sektoriaus kontekstas.In the world, the electronic communications sector is one of the "top seven" sectors, according to L. Thurow (1999). In Lithuania, the electronic communications sector (thereafter - Sector) is one the most dynamic as well; therefore, it is presumable that the sector will remain interesting for market players, regulators, and general public for a long time ahead, especially bearing in mind, that the sector comes as a foundation and as a catalyst for the network society and networked economy. The aim of the research is to analyze the tendencies of the Sector's development and to forecast the directions how the Sector will evolve in the nearest future. In order to determine the general tendencies of the Sector's development the analysis of statistical data was performed. The following trends were established as the main ones. The Sector was growing fast for the past several years, but the growth is slowing down. The analysis of the value of the Sector and GDP has showed that consumers, experiencing the growth of national income, tend to spend more on communication services. The investments into the Sector's infrastructure arc diminishing, and during the latest years the upholding investment is being performed only. The structure of the Sector is more or less stable, while the segments of fixed voice telephony and leased lines diminish structurally in favor for the segments of Internet access and mobile telephony. These tendencies allow stating that now the Sector is living its stasis mode; the time of heavy investments, renovations, fights for a market share, and essential commercialized novelties is in the past. The segments of the mobile services and fixed services were analyzed comprehensively. The hypothesis of fixed-to-mobile substitution was chcckcd-out, and the data has shown, that the substitution has happened in Lithuanian as well as in other CEE countries. The segment of Internet access is the fastest growing one in the Sector, and the analysis has let to conclude, that the Internet access segment is in the "rapid development" stage, and the characteristics of the segment - free entrance for potential market participants, very wide technological spectrum de facto used for provision of Internet access, healthy competition - let conclude, that the segment has good enough prerequisites for further development; noteworthy, that this segment is and should remain a target segment for small and medium enterprises. The analysis of socio-economic context of the Sector has shown, that business users will start to change their demand "to have Internet" into the demand „to have qualitative Internet" en mass. The analysts of reasons of non-usage of Internet by households has taken a reference that Internet service providers will have to create a mass demand for non-users, and will have to offer Internet of higher quality to those who use the services already. Recently, the Sector has been growing with significant speed, but the declining speed of growth and diminishing investments into infrastructure indicate, that: traditional services of telephony arc stagnating; the market is ready for the jump of the segment of the data services; purposeful actions by the state (in terms of regulation as well as in terms of investment) might provide a powerful impulse to the development of the Sector and, probably, would anticipate technological sally. The main tendencies mentioned here point, that it is the time to ..discover" or ..invent" a new engine for the Sector, suchlike as telegraph, fixed communications were formerly, and mobile communications was recently. As such an engine, data services provided by new (broadband) technologies could serve as well as totally new services, which we do not even imagine now (bearing in mind the accelerating changes of technologies and demands)