CENTRE FOR REGIONAL STUDIES OF HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES DISCUSSION PAPERS No. 42 Regions in Information Society – a Hungarian Case-Study by Bálint CSATÁRI – Imre KANALAS – Gábor NAGY – Tibor SZARVÁK Series editor Zoltán GÁL Pécs 2004 1 ISSN 0238–2008 2004 by Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Technical editor: Ilona Csapó. Typeset by Centre for Regional Studies of HAS Printed in Hungary by Sümegi Nyomdaipari, Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Ltd., Pécs. 2 Contents Introduction (B. Csatári)......................................................................................... 7 The importance of information sector within national economy (I. Kanalas) ........................................................................................................ 8 1 The theory of information society (G. Nagy) .................................................... 13 1.1 Basic trends in the revolution of information technology.......................... 13 1.2 The economic impacts of transformation into an information society....... 15 1.3 The social and cultural challenges of the information age......................... 18 1.4 Prognosticated impacts on spatial structure ............................................... 20 2 Telecommunication infrastructure, networks, services (I. Kanalas – G. Nagy)...................................................................................... 22 2.1 The development of telecommunication and data transfer networks......... 22 The historical past – Role of telecommunications services ....................... 22 The legacy of Hungarian telecommunication ............................................ 22 New development trends following the change of regime......................... 26 Concluding remarks ................................................................................... 31 2.2 Telecommunication and data transfer technologies ................................... 32 Fixed telephony.......................................................................................... 32 Mobile communications............................................................................. 37 VSAT services ........................................................................................... 39 Cable television networks .......................................................................... 40 Microwave networks.................................................................................. 44 Outlook ...................................................................................................... 45 2.3 The future trends of telecommunication and data communication market......................................................................................................... 46 Future trends in services ............................................................................ 47 Possible changes in transfer technologies and telecommunication networks..................................................................................................... 48 3 Internet in Hungary (I. Kanalas)........................................................................ 52 3.1 The evolution and development of the Internet .......................................... 52 The first steps towards internetworking..................................................... 52 The HBONE-system .................................................................................. 53 The “Sulinet” Schoolnet-system ................................................................ 55 Commercial networks ................................................................................ 56 3.2 Internet access in Hungary from international perspectives ...................... 59 3.3 The future development trends of Internet in Hungary.............................. 60 3 4 The competitiveness of counties within the Information Society (B. Csatári – I. Kanalas)................................................................................... 62 4.1 Spatial diffusion and distribution of domain name servers........................ 62 4.2 The realitive position of counties in the rising information society .......... 71 5 Regional information society strategies (G. Nagy)........................................... 76 5.1 Core regions ............................................................................................... 78 5.2 Traditional industrial areas – Strategies for regeneration .......................... 79 5.3 The spatial organisation models of new industrial areas............................ 80 5.4 The programmes of rural areas .................................................................. 83 5.5 Peripheral areas .......................................................................................... 85 Final remarks (B. Csatári – I. Kanalas – G. Nagy – T. Szarvák)........................... 88 Annex..................................................................................................................... 93 References............................................................................................................ 108 4 List of figures Figure 1 Optical fibre networks in Hungary (1998) .......................................... 27 Figure 3 Number of phone main lines by small regions (per 1000 inhabitants, 1993) ................................................................................ 34 Figure 4 Number of phone main lines by small regions (per 1000 inhabitants, 2000) ................................................................................ 36 Figure 5 Technical characteristics of CABLE TV networks, 2001 ................... 42 Figure 6 Number of flats with CABLE TV connections (per 1000 inhabitants, 2000) ................................................................................ 43 Figure 12 Spatial diffusion of domain name servers in Hungary (November, 1998) ............................................................................... 64 Figure 13 Spatial diffusion of domain name servers in Hungary (November, 2001) ............................................................................... 65 Figure 14 Cumulated rank of counties in the spaces of “traditional” and “information” potential (2000)............................................................ 73 Figure 15 The rank of counties in the dimensions of “traditional” and “information” potential (2000)............................................................ 74 Annex Figure 2 Concession areas and service providers of fixed telecommunication .............................................................................. 94 Figure 7 Microwave-based communication network of Antenna Hungária Co. ...................................................................................... 95 Figure 8 The costs of Internet using in 2000, in the countries of OECD (30 hours outside of „peak-hours”, USD, in PPP, incl. VAT)................... 97 Figure 9 Changing rate in number of Internet-hosts per 1000 inhabitants in some European countries (Hungary = 100%)...................................... 98 Figure 10 Number of Internet-hosts in Hungary (1991–2001)............................ 99 Figure 11 Changing number of domain-name registrations (1991–2002)........... 99 List of tables Table 1 Some economic indicators of telecommunication and broadcasting industry ............................................................................ 9 Table 2 The number of businesses and employees within the telecommunication sector.................................................................... 10 Table 3 Changes in the number of businesses between 1995–1998................. 10 5 Table 4 The share of ICT sector within companies with double entry book-keeping within the national economy (percentage) between 1995–1998........................................................................................... 11 Table 5 The comparison of GDP with telecommunication investments (running costs, in million HUF) .......................................................... 23 Table 6 The number of fixed telephone stations in some European countries .............................................................................................. 24 Table 7 The density of telephone stations by counties..................................... 25 Table 8 The number of fixed phone subscribers .............................................. 48 Table 9 The division and density of ISDN by counties.................................... 49 Table 11 Changes in Internet access fees in Hungary (HUF/month) ................. 57 Table 12 The number of Internet subscriptions within the categories of access method...................................................................................... 58 Table 13 The number of information service providers sorted by service type ...................................................................................................... 59 Table 16 The division of domain name proprietors by their basic function....... 68 Annex Table 10 The speed of data-communication in national R&D networks (2001) .................................................................................................. 96 Table 14 The number of internet users in some European countries ................. 96 Table 15 Registered domain-name servers by counties and regions................ 100 Table 17 Main categories of domain-name owners by counties (2001)........... 101 Table 18a Rank of counties I. – Demography, Employment, Housing.............