Mobile government – general overview, services, challenges and perspectives of Azerbaijan Текст научной статьи по специальности «СМИ (медиа) и массовые коммуникации»

MOBILE GOVERNMENT - GENERAL OVERVIEW, SERVICES, CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES OF AZERBAIJAN © Aliyeva N.E.*

Institute Cybernetic National Academy Sciences of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan, Baku

This paper explores the prospects of mobile government, an extension of the growing movement toward electronic government (e-government). Specifically, we look at the status of mobile-technology applications at the state level and it's potential.

With the development of information communication technology (ICT) and the demand for more efficient and effective government, governments have pursued e-government initiatives to offer more information and online services to citizens, government agencies, businesses, and others. E-government efforts aim to benefit from the use of most innovative forms of information technologies, particularly web-based Internet applications, in improving governments' fundamental functions. It is becoming the preferred tool to enhance government services among its customers and government agencies. An explosion in the use of wireless internet appliances, including internet-ready mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are forcing government to prepare themselves to transition from e-government to m-government. In fact, wireless refers to the method of transferring information between a computing device, such as a personal data assistant (PDA), and a data source, such as an agency database server, without a physical connection [1, 2]. A mobile device may be a PDA, a smart cell phone or web phone, a laptop computer, or any one of numerous other devices that allow the user to complete computing tasks without being tethered, or connected, to a network. Mobile phones give users unique opportunities to receive services and information literally from any place, at any time.

Mobile government is not waiting for the future with the abundance of enabling technologies appearing on the market such as 3G and Wi-Fi networks [2]. Wireless technologies bring a number of advantages to an organization. In a word, these advantages can be summed up as mobility: the freedom to access essential information wherever you are. Mobile devices give users unique opportunities to receive government services and information literally from any place, at any time. Despite its infancy, mobile government is a growing and important set of complex strategies and tools that will change completely the

* Scientist.

roles and functioning of traditional governance. M-government is not a replacement for e-government, rather it complements it. M-Government is building upon e-Government efforts, and there are basically two important issues related to the transition from and the relationship between e-Government to m-Government:

- M-Government is inevitable: The major forces influencing m-Govern-ment’s adoption include:

- Current technological advances in the areas of wireless World Wide Web and the Internet.

- Benefits to be gained from value added business models stemming from these developments.

- The citizen's rising expectations for better and more convenient government services.

- M-Government will be complimentary to E-Government.

Some of m-Government services are replications of e-Government services on the mobile platforms.

M-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

M-govemment is defined as government’s efforts to provide information and services to public employees, citizens, businesses, and non-profit organizations through wireless communication networks and mobile devices such as pagers, PDAs, cellular phones, and their supporting systems. We will see how the technology and the services presented above took place in various m-government implementations. We will focus on the best-practice cases [2, 3].

1. Emergency Management: Fires and Natural Disasters. Mobile technology can be used to link field reporting, ambulance tracking, and other communication systems among emergency professionals, police officers, firefighters, and public works departments.

2. Public Safety Management and Health Care System. Law enforcement and emergency management are other areas where mobile technologies have been widely used. Public safety departments increasingly use public wireless networks and mobile devices to «enhance productivity in the field, provide rapid connectivity and response in life-or-death situations, and to provide rapid access to information».

3. Education System. Internet and mobile phones play a very important role for education system, as they provide instant communication among parents, students and schools. Parents can receive frequent updates on academic performance of their children, and sometimes, instant notifications if their children are late or missing class. For the students in higher education, mobile services may provide an opportunity to send and receive announcements on emergencies and public safety, class schedule updates, traffic and weather conditions, office hours, campus resources available, and exam results.

4. M-Transport At same time mobile technology can be used in getting useful information for drivers. Even drivers can pay parking fees via mobile phones and etc.

5. M-Democracy. Governments make forms and publications available online to increase citizens’ participation and ask for their opinions. A proposition for a new law or an amendment can be posted on a web site. People with comments, suggestions and questions can send their comments via internet and mobile phones. Some people may be reluctant to send comments by using a mobile phone because their number is visible at the other end. However, various technical solutions are available to protect privacy.

M-Information. Via mobile phones citizens can get useful information, news and interesting changes in their cities.

New m-service ideas:

- Information on car inspection via mobile;

- Weather forecast;

- M-pediatrician;

- M-army;

- Ordering tickets via mobile phone (theater, cinema etc.);

- Information about available jobs on mobile;

- M-notifications from libraries;

- M-traffic announcements;

- Notifications on water or electricity interruptions;

- Mobile culture information;

- M-university (exam results, exam dates, cancellations etc.);

- M-tickets for sports events;

CHALLENGES AND CRITICAL ISSUES

There are various challenges to adapting M-government revolution such as developing wireless and mobile networks and related infrastructure, promoting mobile penetration and increasing accessibility, dealing with an extremely difficult task of protecting privacy and providing security for the data and interactions, regulating and developing legal aspects of mobile applications and use of the services. Among them, we will select the most relevant to m-government [3-5] (table 1).

Summarizing all the points emphasized above, we can talk about benefits of m-government as follows:

- Provide access to relevant information, reducing transport and indirect costs.

- Improves transparency as well as the District political image.

- Improves the communication and, thus, the citizen relationship.

- Makes the processes more efficient, makes the services and procedures easier for the citizen.

- Reduces 32.5 % of the required time for procedures and 48 % of the services process.

- Promotes the e-Democracy and Citizen Participation.

Table 1

Privacy and security While all traffic on the internet is subject to interception, some hackers are spying on corporate wireless networks from outside buildings, where they can scan e-mail and documents. Privacy and security for mobile, wireless computing is a particularly difficult problem. Deploy and manage security policies for many devices When a variety of different handheld devices are being used within agency, one would need an easy and fast way to set up security policies on each device. This would be a daunting task to administrators to centralize the creation and management of security policies and configurations for handheld devices. There may be a need for different policies for different people, as well as the different devices

Securing wireless e-mail According to government regulations, every e-mail message sent and received within the government network must be digitally signed or digitally signed and encrypted to ensure the highest security. It is a great challenge to offer government departments the ability to transparently secure e-mail and attachments from device to desktop or user to user, as well as on the server. Accessibility As government entities pursue plans to provide access to m-Government information and services via text to wireless access devices, they should also facilitate making the information more accessible for all citizens via the web and other communications technologies.

Protecting against loss of data Because they are small and portable, handheld devices such as PDAs and smart phones can be easily stolen or lost, putting the data stored on them at constant risk of falling into the wrong hands. The citizens need to install encryption cards on every device to ensure that sensitive information is encrypted using the strongest 128-bit standard. Mobile authentications As states deal with citizens and businesses over a variety of different technologies (desktop, laptop, cell phone, PDA, etc.), it will be ever more important to set a uniform policy for how to conduct a specific transaction. This policy should be applicable no matter what technology the user has chosen to use to conduct the transaction on that day.

Securing handheld access to the corporate network In order to fully benefit from having a mobile workforce, government agencies need to ensure secure network access to their corporate applications from their handheld devices. It will be another difficult task to ensure a secure connection between a wireless device and the corporate network, preventing unauthorized access of an agency's critical information from outside the network. IPSec-based, with many of the current leading VPN gateways may be a solution but such solutions need to be fully tested before put to use. Mobile payments There should be an effective mechanism to make payment through mobile devices. Issues to be addressed include a mechanism that constitutes prima facie evidence of authorization (e.g., a dialed call) and authentication. As states consider m-government services, they may need to address new regulations for mobile payments and the associated authorization and authentication requirements.

Realizing importance of generally ICT sector, as well as e-government the Republic of Azerbaijan declared this sector one of the high priority sectors of the country. At the same time Azerbaijan carries out various state programs and important projects in this field. Therefore there is a lot of potential for development of e-government services, as well as m-government services. The cellular communication market of Azerbaijan has been developing rapidly and re-

mains one of the most attractive investment segments of the national telecommunication market. Over the past five years, mobile coverage has reached 100 % of the population on 80 % of the territory of the country. The cellular communication market of Azerbaijan is well developed compared to that of most developing countries. Currently there are 100 mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants and revenues from mobile communications account for approximately б5 % of the total ICT sector revenue. As mobile penetration increases, the mobile content market is also increasing in importance for GSM operators. That market already accounts for approximately 98 % of all cellular communication (including that on the CDMA standard). Fore these facts we can emphasize there is a big potential for development m-government services in our country. In near future Azerbaijan will be in the in first ranks for development of m-government services between developing countries.

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МОДЕЛЬ ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛЬНОЙ НЕЙРОСЕТЕВОЙ ЭКСПЕРТНОЙ СИСТЕМЫ НА ОСНОВЕ ПРЕЦЕДЕНТОВ © Бегман Ю.В.*

Кубанский государственный технологический университет, г. Краснодар

Рассматриваются вопросы комбинирования интеллектуальных вычислений с целью построения гибридной интеллектуальной системы,

* Доцент кафедры Вычислительной техники и автоматизированных систем управления, кандидат технических наук.