Continuation of a discussion with the Director of the Institute of Information Technologies, member of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, doctor of technical sciences, Professor Rasim Aligulievym.
- How are the preparations for the launch of the first Azerbaijani satellite into space going?
- Azerbaijan has approved the program for the launch of a telecommunications satellite; American and French scientists are involved in the process. At the same time, our country is developing its own aerospace industry. The satellite will collect information about Azerbaijan and the region. This information will be processed and then contribute to better efficiency in economic management decision-making.
- What will change when the satellite reaches orbit?
- Previously, the economy was significantly influenced by the transport infrastructure. If a certain settlement happens to be closer to the main road, its development is more successful. But the world is changing. The transport infrastructure will continue, of course, to play a significant role, but information, the so-called intangible world, will become more and more important. Knowledge, information resources, academic and journalistic activities are all based on information. Now the global information and communication infrastructure is gradually covering the entire globe. In the twenty-first century a country, a town, a settlement distant from the information infrastructure will not develop.
The Azerbaijani telecommunications satellite will become one of the links in this infrastructure; the entire population will be surrounded by an information and communications network. We will be available to provide the ground with satellite antennae and communications equipment. Then all the people of Azerbaijan will gain access to the global information network and will be able to exchange information. Our television and radio channels will be broadcast via the satellite; it will also be providing Internet services. It is easy to be cut off from the world without such an infrastructure.
- Do foreign companies intend to sign contracts with the owners of the Azerbaijani satellite?
- In our region, not all the countries have their own satellites. And since our satellite will cover a large area, Azerbaijan intends to provide communication services to all interested countries on a commercial basis.
- Do you think in the future the Internet will replace television and the printed media?
- I think so. Already nowadays Internet users do not read newspapers that often, since all the information can be found on the web portals. The news agencies have turned to Internet technologies, many newspapers have online editions. The Internet has great potential and is valid without restriction throughout the world, when, for example, newspapers have a limited print run and are usually distributed within states. Radio and television also has a limited distribution area. And with the Internet, from anywhere in the world you have access to any Web resource, any social network. Gradually, Internet services will become more developed and modernized, new opportunities will appear .
- Why, then do other types of information still exist?
- Because the Internet cannot yet solve the problem of the "last mile" - it is impossible to have access to the Internet from any location, while someone can take a radio or newspaper anywhere. The problem of the "last mile" in the radio and printing technologies is solved in a better way than in Internet technologies. When the Internet can be anywhere, other types of media will gradually lose in the competition. This will be in connection with broadband Internet with 3G and 4G technologies, which will provide a mobile high speed internet. It is possible to watch television, listen to the radio, read the news and use the Internet in 4G with the help of portable equipment. Developed countries, such as the US, have already begun applying the new 4G technologies. In Russia some operators are claiming a transition to the new technologies. A revolution is taking place in this sphere.
A newspaper has form and content. Radio is a technology which allows distribution of the content via electronic equipment. The content of the newspapers, radio and television will remain; only the form will be changed. They sometimes say in Azerbaijan that people have stopped reading books and newspapers, and that this is evidence of the general degradation of the population. No! People are just receiving information in a different form - through the Internet.
Rasim Aliguliyev was born in 1958. He graduated from the Faculty of Automation and Computer Engineering at the Technical University with a major in computer technology. He has developed several conceptual approaches and methods in the sphere of networks, as well as anti-spam technologies for corporations. Rasim Aliguliyev is a member of the International Organizations such as the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery, USA). Since 2005 he is a member of the International Informatization Academy, professor at Baku State University.
Interview by Ramin Naziyev, Baku. Exclusively for VK
