Internet in Yemen

Internet usage in Yemen began in 1996 through the ISP TeleYemen and the Public Telecommunications Corporation.

Growth

Development of the telecommunications and information technology sectors in Yemen occurred from 2000 to 2005. The extent of investments in infrastructure development of telecom and IT systems came to more than YR 80 billion, in addition to loans of $31 million by the South Korean government. The number of subscribers to cellular telephone networks came to 1.2 million by early 2006, in comparison to 153,000 in 1991. The number of Internet users came to 110,000 in 2006, compared to 3,800 in 1991.

There has been a huge demand for faster Internet connections in Yemen, and that pushed the two ISPs (TeleYemen, operators of the service YNET, and YemenNet, through the state's powerful Ministry of Telecommunications) to introduce ADSL and ISDN connections. Also, the E-government project that started on 2000 to give the citizens the ability to access web services and finalize G2C transactions increased the number of Internet users dramatically. But still the quality of speed is not that up to the mark. Telecommunication for international calls specially in Europe and U.S.A is quite high in comparison to other countries.

The Internet penetration in Yemen is among the lowest in the Arab World region. By September 2005, Yemen's Internet subscribers' penetration stood at a very small 0.5%, The Internet users penetration was however 2.4% by end of September 2005. The Arab Advisors Group projects the Internet subscribers' penetration to reach nearly 1.36% and the users' penetration to reach nearly 6.81% by end of 2010. Ms. Hadeel Sakkijha, Arab Advisors Research Analyst wrote in the report.

Filtering

The government of Yemen, through its control of both ISPs in the country, filters what Internet content its citizens can access. The OpenNet Initiative's tests of the filters found that the primary target was pornography, but other content including "sex education and provocative clothing sites, gay and lesbian-related materials, gambling sites, dating sites, drug-related sites, sites enabling anonymous Web surfing, proxy servers that circumvent filtering, and sites with content related to converting Muslims to other religions" were blocked in varying degrees. However, the state "does not block political content and its blocking of religious content is limited, focusing only on a small number of anti-Islam sites."

A number of other policies have also been enacted by the Yemeni Ministry of Communications and the Yemeni Ministry of Culture. The government ordered that Internet cafes remove barriers separating users from each another. In the past, visitors had private cabinets to themselves, so that they could log on to the websites without being seen by anyone else.