While a recent Internet World study reports that more than 186 countries are now reachable via email, reasonably priced Net access is still a foreign concept to most folks around the world.
The Bangkok Post - one of Thailand's biggest English-language newspapers - found this out the hard way. For a pair of dialup lines and a few megs of server space, its monthly bill came to £25,000 (US$990). The problem, says site director Theo den Brinker, is that the government owns a third of each ISP and is reluctant to open the market to private enterprise.
In October, www.bangkokpost.netstarted being served from the US, and the paper now pays just $30 per month. While this type of workaround may help other Net publishers in Thailand and elsewhere, two other groups continue to suffer: the burgeoning Internet businesses that want to build local infrastructure, and the users who want to see what this World Wide Web is all about.
