Slobodan Marković

“ Instead of encouraging and supporting the development of information technologies, all Yugoslav governments (Serbian, Montenegrin and federal) have allowed the sector to develop in an unplanned way. This has resulted in a low level of computerization and even lower levels of computer literacy.
To date, no authoritative and comprehensive study of Internet usage and of the state of ICT development in Yugoslavia has been done. Even the new federal Minister for science and technology, Boris Tadic, could not provide a precise figure for the numbers of Internet users in Yugoslavia. ”

“ Free Internet access in Yugoslavia is still non-existent. There is limited free Internet access in elementary schools and public libraries, but this is unevenly distributed around the regions. On the other hand, all university centers and research institutes in Yugoslavia are connected to the Internet and students may use all Internet services for free. The greatest limitations of the Yugoslav academic network (AMREJ) are low bandwidth (a 2 Mbps ground link to Greece and one backup 512 Kbps satellite link with Norway via Beotel) and the small number of dial-up lines. ”

“ The most common way of accessing the Internet in Yugoslavia is by using one of the pre-paid packages offered by local ISPs. The price per hour is less than 1 DEM on average (in comparison, the average monthly salary in Yugoslavia at the end of 2000 was around 90 DEM) .
Telecom in Serbia and Montenegro charges for local and long-distance calls, but almost all major cities have at least one ISP that offers full Internet access at local (cheaper) phone tariffs. People who live in areas without a local ISP mostly use one of several phone numbers that allow Internet usage at a fixed tariff. ”