The right to Internet access, also known as the right to broadband, is the view that all people must be able to access the Internet in order to exercise and enjoy their rights to freedom of expression and opinion and other fundamental human rights, that states have a responsibility to ensure that Internet access is broadly available, and that states may not unreasonably restrict an individual’s access to the Internet.
The right to access the Internet which will be included in new Constitution of Georgia will play an essential role in conducting a democratic process because Internet is known as one of the most powerful instruments of the 21st century for accessing the information and for facilitating active citizen participation in building democratic societies. The Internet boosts economic, social and political development, and contributes to the progress of humankind as a whole.
The new record will cause a number of additional liabilities of Georgian Government in the many fields. It will encourage the competition on the market, will help to develop the freedom of information legislation, will improve the availability of information and will have positive impact on many other services which are better to get via the Internet and are offered by the government. In the educational field the problem of notability of the high speed Internet access in high mountain regions should be solved, for this purpose there are two current projects which are being implemented by Georgian Government. The first project is about Off-net which is in the process, and in the nearest future we will have to wait for some news. The second project is about Voucherization which is being realized by Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency. These two projects Off-net and Voucherization will encourage private sector to enter on this market which before has been commercially unappealing.
Georgian government has already started the process of internetization of the whole country. Public and private sectors are both involved in this project and worth to mention that private sector plays the same key role as a public sector. The good example of this is the project of internetization in high mountain region Tusheti, which is joint project of local NGO Tusheti Development Fund and American organization the Internet Society (ISOC), Small and Medium Telecom Operators Association of Georgia is also involved in this process.
On April 21, the initiative for creating a new constitution was published and on April 24, above mentioned topic was discussed on 1TV Channel during the interview with Ucha Seturi the CEO of Small and Medium Telecom Operators Association of Georgia.