Essay on Sleeping With The Enemy - 1366 Words

Sleeping With the Enemy Summary Oppression of women in our patriarchal society is seen daily. Men dominate women in so many ways it becomes hard to distinguish one form of oppression from another. In the movie Sleeping With the Enemy, a young woman battles daily with an abusive, domineering husband. Although the outside world may view Lauras life as perfect, the viewer sees the whole truth. Lauras perfect life consists of an attractive, wealthy husband who would do anything for her-even kill. They live in a beautiful mansion on the coast, and Laura does not have to work if she so chooses. Every day Laura is tortured and ridiculed and criticized by her husband. Her husband, Martin Burns, is obsessed about keeping the household in perfect†¦show more content†¦In the beginning of the movie, she is a young wife who is constantly demoralized and exploited by her husband. The only life she has is in striving to please him, a man who will never be satisfied. After almost four years of living in daily fear of her husband, Laura changes from being victimized to becoming a strong survivor. Martin Burns plays the overbearing, domineering, psychotic husband. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder and regularly beats his wife. After relentlessly searching for his wife, she kills him in a moment of intrusion and fear. The third main character in the movie Sleeping With the Enemy is Ben, who plays the role of Saras neighbor. He sweeps Sara Waters off her feet with his charm and helps her to overcome her feelings of insecurity that came from living with an abusive husband. Ben helps Sara learn to live again. The Focus Everyday women are faced with abusive situations and dominating husbands. This movie gives an inside perspective of the emotional and physical effects such abuse has on an individual. In the beginning of the movie, Martin tries to control the way Laura looks, dresses, and acts. She is battered for disagreeing with him, and ridiculed for not completing tasks the way he wants them done. For example, Laura refuses to go boating with her husband because she is scared of the water, and because she disagrees with him, Martin strikes her across the face, knocks her to the floor, andShow MoreRelatedSleeping with the Enemy1546 Words   |  7 PagesIn the movie Sleeping With the Enemy, Laura Burns, is living a life that many would describe as perfect. Laura lives in a beautiful mansion on the coast with her handsome, wealthy husband Martin. This wealth allows Laura the opportunity to stay at home rather than working outside of the home. However, behind closed doors this perfect life is ve ry different from what the outside world sees. Laura is constantly being beaten, ridiculed, and criticized by her husband. Martin is obsessed about keepingRead MoreMovie Review : Sleeping With The Enemy 880 Words   |  4 PagesEvery now and then there will be a movie released that draws every ones attention, of those viewers some will be intrigued by the actors that play the main roles while others by the story/message that captivates how the audience feels. Sleeping with the Enemy proves to be a movie that has grabbed the attention of its viewers. Viewers weren’t struck by a touching and heart-warming story of romance but one of a young woman trapped in the grasp of a desperate and hopeless relationship, and her driveRead MoreRevolt of Mother, by Mary E. Wilkins Essay1126 Words   |  5 Pagesconstantly exempt by her husband (Adonriam Penn) in taking part in important decisions until her frustration reached a breaking point, which ultimately leads to drastic changes i n their family. In contrast a similar conflict arises in the movie Sleeping With the Enemy (1991), which was directed by Joseph Ruben. In the movie the main character, Laura Burney, had everything her heart desired. On the surface she had a beautiful house, a successful husband, and any material item she could ever want. HoweverRead MoreSleeping Beauty And Pick Out The Main Characters1371 Words   |  6 PagesWhen we think about Sleeping Beauty it is not difficult to visualize a dainty delicate girl being rescued by a heroic and dashing man. These images are things that little girls are taught to fawn and fantasize about. Is this good or bad? Well, when pondering the princess as a whole one might believe her sweet and gentle nature is a strength in her case, but that all depends on who you ask. In the perspective of another person these attributes can be considered significant weaknesses. Contrary toRead MoreSleeping With The Devil by Robert Baer Essay908 Words   |  4 PagesIn troduction Robert Baer’s â€Å"Sleeping With The Devil†, is a very interesting book. This book is actually a critique from Baer, who was Central Intelligence Officer (CIA). It describes the relationship that the Americans had with Saudia Arabia. Baer was concerned about how much the relationship between the two was very hypocritical to the American values and that it put the US economy in jeopardy. When it comes to the book’s main theme and points it includes; that America’s corruption on cheap oilRead MoreStay Awake, Stay Alive!1090 Words   |  5 PagesStaying awake while on duty is important for many reasons. First of all, I could potentially endanger not only myself, but also the rest of my platoon. Should an enemy slip by while I slept, they could possibly detonate a VBIED or kill battle buddies through any number of other means. Families could be destroyed because of my mistake. But the damage may not stop there†¦ Every family would be hurt when they were forced to read the words; â€Å"I regret to inform you...† The Army itself would have to explainRead MoreThe Greatest Heroes Of The War1511 Words   |  7 Pagesinside, which would have killed Murphy instantly. Thinking of the company rather than himself, Murphy made his way to the machine gun under heavy fire. He then used the machine gun to push back the entirety of the German offensive, killing countless enemies but saving countless of his men. This particular incident is believed to have taken place in the Colmar Pocket, an area along the border of France and Switzerland. (The exact time and date of this account is not known, but it is believed to be a shorterRead MoreHow To Write An Essay On The L A. L. A Essay1224 Words   |  5 Pagesevery challenge and passed every test he was the perfect solder. By day he was a hero but by night he was worried that he would never come home or play basketball. He was sleeping less and less. F inally it was time to go to war. The U.S was creating a virus after the enemy broke the rules of war and used biological warfare. It was like a gas. When released into the air it would find the closest living thing it could cling on to then the pathogensRead MoreThe Benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle707 Words   |  3 Pagesinsecurity, accidents, natural disasters and many other things, but what we don’t realize is that sometime we can be our own worst enemy. Our lives could be so much easier if we lead a healthy lifestyle. There are countless benefits in many areas, so, what are these benefits? First of all we can establish that a healthy lifestyle consists of following a good diet, sleeping well and exercising, among others; for one thing there is following a good diet, this helps you maintain your weight as eating wellRead MoreThe Battle Of The Atlantic1113 Words   |  5 Pagesthis time but they wanted to stay neutral. This attack forced President Roosevelt to declare war on Japan who had recently joined the Axis Powers. This surprise attack gave the Japanese people a short-term moral win but it eventually woke up a â€Å"sleeping giant† being the United States and in the long-term gave the United States a win. Had Pearl Harbor never happened, Germany would have continued to conquer most of Europe and they would have had a better chance of taking over the world. Pearl Harbor

Professional Ethics And Public Administration - 2137 Words

Generally, the issue of ethics especially in the business world is very complicated. Accordingly, many scholars have tried to explain the rationale behind being ethical. For instance, early scholars such as Milton Freidman and Adam Smith explains this issue by exploring on the social responsibilities of corporates, as well as in the theory of incentives whereby the rationale is driven by the needs of either the firm or an individual who is profit maximization and maximization of utility by households. This paper critiques two articles on professional ethics in public administration. The first article under critique is Professional Ethics and Public Administration in the United States authored by Moataz Fattah. In his introduction, Fattah (2011) defines the importance of professional ethics by arguing that the lack of ethical workplaces across the world has partly contributed to skepticism and a widespread lack of confidence in public officials and institutions among the citizenship. According to the author, this diminished confidence in public institutions ultimate results to the phenomenon of decline state capacity, weak or soft states or even failed states. In essence, no development and progress can occur if public institutions lack credibility and are regarded as unethical are corrupt. To provide a solution, Fattah suggests looking at several nations that have been able to control corruption and maintain strict ethical monitoring such as the United States.Show MoreRelatedPolicing1068 Words   |  5 PagesEthics in Criminal Justice Administration Analysis Perla M. Flores CJA/484 Criminal Justice Administration Capstone March 10, 2014 Fran Hart Ethics in Criminal Justice Administration Analysis Ethics in criminal justice administration is a very important aspect because professionals within the criminal justice system make important decisions every day that involves critical thinking, and the choices they make will have an impact in society;Read MoreEthics in Criminal Justice Administration Essay1533 Words   |  7 PagesEthics in Criminal Justice Administration Analysis Lisa Myatt CJA/484 David Mailloux July 30, 2012 Ethics and professional behavior are an important part of criminal justice administration. Ethics is referred to as what is right or wrong and your moral principles. Criminal justice administration are faced with ethical issues everyday and must deal with this ethical issues in a professional manner. The administration in criminal justice especially theRead MoreThe Ethics Of The Public Administration System Essay814 Words   |  4 PagesAdministrative Ethics is one of the terms of Administrative science which begins with and grounded in duty. The nature, meaning and scopes of ethics have overgrown in the course of time. Ethics is thickened to public administration. In public administration, ethics concentrates on how the public administrator should question and reflect in order to be able to act responsibly. We can simply bisect the two by saying that ethics deals with morals and values, while public administration is full of actionsRead MoreThe Normative Foundations Of Public Service Ethics832 Words   |  4 PagesThe Normative Foundations of Public Service Ethics Introduction Those thought to be ethical or moral are described in terms of their values in regards to honesty, integrity and good character. Our ethical conduct originates from our values which are greatly influenced by our morals; they provide guidance and are our standard for the ways in which we carry out and view right and wrong decisions. For these reasons, personal ethics are said to be our foundation and, as such, often influence how we administerRead MorePolitics Administration Dichotomy Essay752 Words   |  4 PagesAdministration and Politics Dichotomy Advantages and Disadvantages Abstract By discussing some of the advantages and disadvantages of administration and politics dichotomy, an opinion of whether it is useful or impossible will be made. Wilson’s politics administration dichotomy refers to the idea that administrative decisions need to be made without political influence. One argument to this is that politics has transformed, let’s say, the role of a city manager from a neutral expert to a problemRead MoreNational Council Of State Board Of Nursing868 Words   |  4 PagesAccording to the website of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing it states, â€Å"Because nursing care poses a risk of harm to the public if practiced by professionals who are unprepared or incompetent, the state, through its police powers, is required to protect its citizens from harm.† This statement is very significant because it simply states the basis of why there is a State Board of Nursing, it is to regulate nursing practice. It is imperative that patien ts are protected from harm andRead MoreEthics : Ethics And Ethics1479 Words   |  6 Pageshas a few meanings to the word ethics. The broad use of the term ethics is sometimes equated with moral principles, or a system of these. However, it also describes ethics to be â€Å"The moral principles or values held or shown by an individual person. The codes of conduct or moral principles recognized in a particular profession, sphere of activity, relationship, or other context or aspect of human life.† Ethics plays an important part in the legal system. Law and ethics go hand in hand when establishingRead More How Does the Public Sector Work? Essay1683 Words   |  7 PagesIf you dont understand how the public sector is supposed to work, how can you ensure that it is working? An easy definition of public administration is, â€Å"the implementation of government policies† (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010), or, â€Å"the implementation of public policy† (Infoplease.com, 1997). While policies and procedures seem to be continuously up for debate, it should be noted that, an informed public are the only sure-fire way to ensure that the public sector stays on track with meeting theRead MoreA New Superintendent Of An Urban School District Essay1705 Words   |  7 Pagesbelieves educators are trained to run schools and should do so with the least amount of interference possible. For this reason, an ethical crisis arises when the district decides whether or not to close a loc al high school. While public relations officers want district administration to be as transparent as possible to remain honest and open, the superintendent and other schoolboard members want to hold meetings with no media present. This facts of this case will become clear through explication. 2. RelevantRead MoreUnethical Behavior Has A Negative Impact On The Public, Economy And Work Environment Essay910 Words   |  4 PagesEthics according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is â€Å"the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group† (Ethic, 2015). As public administration professionals, we have a duty to make ethical decisions and always put the general public’s interest before our interest. Repeatedly, the general public is being confronted with unethical behavior. Unethical behavior continues to be a persistent problem in the public, nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Some recent unethical behavior includes

Chads Creative Concepts Case Study free essay sample

Chad’s Creative Concepts Case Study 1. What types of decisions must Chad Thomas make daily for his company’s operations to run effectively? Over the long run? Chad Thomas needs to make sure daily manufacturing schedules are aligned with the current orders. The fact that the same set of employees and the same set of tools are being used to manufacture both the custom and the standard pieces of furniture is definitely problematic. In order to meet the demands of each product, it is critical that scheduling be created in the most efficient of manners given the current constraints. Allocating all the resources properly is a key along with scheduling and layout. In regards to long term decisions, Mr. Thomas is going to have to decide if he is going to stay with the same facility, equipment, employees and so on. Without making more drastic changes such as seeking to separate the current company into two separate divisions consisting of custom furniture and standard furniture, Chad Thomas may want to ensure the factory layout is as efficient as possible. We will write a custom essay sample on Chads Creative Concepts Case Study or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Mr. Thomas needs to figure out what competitive priorities he wants to most address because currently he has two priorities with potentially two distinctly different answers. Having a highly customized product manufactured requires a more hands on involved approach which focuses less on quantity. The standard furniture is requiring less variety in the product but more volume output at a lower price. With the success of both of these lines of furniture, the company has turned a profit but has reached a point where growth is a significant issue because they are at capacity, lead times are increasing, and the cost of inventory is skyrocketing. . How did sales and marketing affect operations when they began to sell standard pieces of retail outlets? By promoting the standard furniture, sales and marketing attempted to and somewhat successfully introduced Chad’s Creative Concepts to a larger consumer base. It placed quality furniture items in retail outlets. This has been successful wh ich, in turn, required the company to schedule the same employees and the same equipment that produce the custom line to produce the increasing demand of the standard line. The custom line has taken priority, however, due to the higher dollar sales, and the standard lines products were often left temporarily incomplete till the custom orders were met. This is a significant problem because the consumers of the standard furniture expect lower lead times and lower prices. 3. How has the move to producing standard furniture affected the company’s financial structure? The profits have increased for the company with the custom line accounting for 60% of volume and 75% of dollar sales according to this case study. The standard line has seen a continued increase in sales as well. What comes with the increased profit due to the increased manufacturing is the need to put higher amounts of capital into storing the higher inventory. With the company being at capacity, the lead times may not be meeting consumer demands either. The expansion that is needed would initially cost Chad’s Creative Concepts greatly. Without some type of expansion (which would most likely require a new plant), soaring inventory costs will need to be attended to. . What might Chad Thomas have done differently to avoid some of the problems he now faces? Perhaps Mr. Thomas should have studied and evaluated what pursuing a standard line of furniture in addition to maintaining the custom line of furniture would have meant to all aspects of the company in the future. The production of a custom line and standard line would need to be handled differently due to the differing customer expectations. Realizing that these production lines may need to be separated or that the potential results in keeping them condensed should have brought about questioning of potential issues such as storing inventory and conflicting production scheduling. The plant is at capacity currently according to the case study. Mr. Thomas should have been better prepared to handle the increased production or at least toned down the drive to enter the standard furniture market until better accommodations could have existed.

Case Study Tata Steel

Question: Discuss about theCase Studyfor Tata Steel. Answer: Company's Approach Towards CSR Tata Steel has a very strong CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy. CSR can be defined as an approach adopted by an organization that takes into consideration the economic, social and environmental aspects of business (Gelbmann, 2010). The CSR policy adopted by Tata Steel reflects the company's commitment towards business ethics. The company believes that providing good products and services is not sufficient to survive in today's business environment. Companies are constantly being judged by the stakeholders on the basis of what is being offered, how it being offered and what is the impact on the environment. The company makes every possible effort to adopt "greener" business options (Gelbmann, 2010). The company demonstrates its CSR by advocating ethical behavior. The company values its stakeholders and fulfills its ethical obligations towards them. The company's sustainability policy tries to integrate its business activities with economic development, conservation of the e nvironment and social reforms. This approach is beneficial for the environment, local communities, employees, and customers. Tata Steel believes in regulatory compliance and ethical compliance (Gelbmann, 2010). For example, the company abides by the anti-pollution laws. The company not only strives to achieve the lower limits but also tries to make significant contributions towards environmental protection. The company takes initiatives towards cost reduction through proper utilization of energy and waste management. Sustainable Practices Adopted by the Company to Underpin its Vision Steel has innumerable applications. But at the same time, it is recyclable. When recycled, the quality of steel does not deteriorate. Production of steel leads to carbon dioxide emissions that result in climatic changes (Katewa, 2015). The company's sustainable practices included the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The gases produced at the manufacturing plant are re-used to produce electricity. The produced electricity is equivalent to 10% of company's electricity needs. This brings down the consumption of natural gas for the production of electricity. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions have reduced by 300,000 tons (Katewa, 2015). The company is making investments in Research and Development activities for manufacturing steel with low carbon content. The company wants to offer products that generate lesser carbon dioxide in their life cycle. Analysis of Life Cycle Assessment Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to study the impact of the product on the environment throughout its life cycle. According to LCA, steel is considered as the most environmental-friendly building material (Jha and Arora, 2013). Steel used in construction can be recycled whereas; concrete and timber are dumped at the end of their life cycle. This reduces carbon footprints. Thus, builders are using steel for low carbon impact. The UK government is trying to introduce sustainability in the packaging industry by bringing down the weight of packaging material used by companies (Jha and Arora, 2013). According to the LCA done by Tata Steel, it is not a right decision. These regulations can lead to companies using lighter packaging materials that are not recyclable. According to LCA, steel is a sustainable option for packaging because it can be recycled. Steel cans are a sustainable option. Tata Steel also encourages other brands in the steel industry to follow sustainable practices. Veh icles are a major source of carbon dioxide emissions (Gjlberg, 2010). The emissions are not only generated during the usage phase of automobiles but also during their production and disposition. According to LCA, steel is the most suitable material for reducing carbon emissions from automobiles especially cars. Sustainable Approach It is important for an organization to maintain a good brand image. The sustainable decisions which are to be taken for the company project such companies are socially-responsible and environmentally-committed organization. This boosts the reputation of Tata Steel. The product offered by the company also ensures sustainability. Tata Steel makes decisions on the basis of product life cycle. Thus, sustainable decisions are made by taking into consideration the manufacturing, usage, and disposition of products (Jha and Arora, 2013). Most companies base their decisions on one phase of product life cycle- manufacturing or usage. But Tata Steel considers the environmental and social implications throughout the product life cycle. Conclusion Tata Steel ensures that its business practices do not impact the society and environment in a negative manner. Steel is a sustainable option in the several industries like automobile, construction, and packaging because it can be recycled. CSR helps to difference Tata Steel from its competitors (Gjlberg, 2010). Ethical and sustainable decisions also increase employee satisfaction. Sustainable business approaches increase business efficiency and customer loyalty. Corporate sustainability creates value for the stakeholders and improves company reputation. Thus a company enjoys higher profits. References Gelbmann, U. (2010). Establishing strategic CSR in SMEs: an Austrian CSR quality seal to substantiate the strategic CSR performance.Sustainable Development, 18(2), pp.90-98. Gjlberg, M. (2010). Varieties of corporate social responsibility (CSR): CSR meets the Nordic Model.Regulation Governance, 4(2), pp.203-229. Jha, V. and Arora, S. (2013). Strategic leadership for corporate sustainable development at Tata Steel.International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 7(3), p.283. Suh, S. and Heijungs, R. (2007). Power series expansion and structural analysis for life cycle assessment.The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 12(6), pp.381-390.

A Heart of Fire essays

A Heart of Fire essays Slowly he walked down the hallways. His head ducked down, and his eyes slightly closed. His head was slightly turned towards the wall; he was trying to hide his tears. The slow movement of his tears felt like wet drips of sand, gently carving paths of heartbreak across his face. His heart felt as if it was on fire, and his mind was a jumble of thoughts. Why did kids have to be so mean to him? Was he really so different then them? Was he really the freak they accused him of being? A door jutted open in front of him, and turning quickly out of the way, he ran to the bathroom. He had to be alone. As he entered the bathroom he caught site of his reflection. Turning his face slightly toward the mirrors, he took a good long hard look at himself. He starred into his own deep dark brown eyes. His tears streamed down his chubby cheeks. His glasses seemed to fog from his misting eyes. "I hate VT," his words echoed around the old cement room. " I want to go home" John had moved to VT a few months earlier. He had hated the idea from the beginning. He was happy in NY. Why should he have to uproot from the only home he has ever known? " I grew up in that house," he thought. " Why can't my dad just keep working at the same place." A truth a, realization, something I found. When I was at the age of eight years old, I discovered a truth about mankind. We are cruel. Now to some, this seems like nothing short of common sense. But to a child, a child of a pure and gentle heart. This comes as a shock. I remember this day very clearly and the pain I felt. I remember the years after, and the torturous teasing, beatings, and stabbing that I endured. My case of Harassment wasn't just any normal sticks and stones. My peers horribly ridiculed me. And would you like to know the reasons why? " Oh Paul you are just one of those kids who always gets made fun of, its just who you are." I also made a realization. One of my stature could fight back. A ...

Free Essays on Ethnocentism

How do you learn about another culture without passing negative judgments on areas that are different? This is the main question for me regarding ethnocentrism. I grew up in three different countries within three different cultures and I luckily learned how to suspend judgments in other people’s practices in order to understand their own culture. As a war refuge, I’ve experienced many horrible things and unjustified judgments about my own culture. I don’t want to go in details about it, but I also don’t want anybody to experience what I did. Based on everything I went through, as an adult, I am doing my best to respect every culture and their practices even if they differ from my own culture’s point of view. Let me explain a recent magazine article written by Serbian journalist. The conflict between three nations in Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) led to a war that took countless number of lives. Everything that happened in those five years of war was caused by ethnocentrism and hate. People just didn’t want to accept each other the way they are. The writer of this article is trying to say how everything â€Å"his† people (Serbs) do is right and whatever others do is wrong. Here, we can see a typical illustration of ethnocentrism, â€Å" Seeing the success of Croatian Nazis in turning the clock back to 1941, Islam fundamentalist Muslims of Bosnia are trying to turn the clock even further back into the Balkan past. They are trying to turn the clock more than 100 years back. Back to the time when Bosnia was part of Turkish Empire.... And non-Muslims were only second class citizens†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.† This article contributed a great deal to cultural misunderstanding about Croats and Muslims If anyone who’s not from those surroundings reads this article, they are going to think that Muslims and Croats in Bosnia are some kind of animals. I am from th... Free Essays on Ethnocentism Free Essays on Ethnocentism How do you learn about another culture without passing negative judgments on areas that are different? This is the main question for me regarding ethnocentrism. I grew up in three different countries within three different cultures and I luckily learned how to suspend judgments in other people’s practices in order to understand their own culture. As a war refuge, I’ve experienced many horrible things and unjustified judgments about my own culture. I don’t want to go in details about it, but I also don’t want anybody to experience what I did. Based on everything I went through, as an adult, I am doing my best to respect every culture and their practices even if they differ from my own culture’s point of view. Let me explain a recent magazine article written by Serbian journalist. The conflict between three nations in Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) led to a war that took countless number of lives. Everything that happened in those five years of war was caused by ethnocentrism and hate. People just didn’t want to accept each other the way they are. The writer of this article is trying to say how everything â€Å"his† people (Serbs) do is right and whatever others do is wrong. Here, we can see a typical illustration of ethnocentrism, â€Å" Seeing the success of Croatian Nazis in turning the clock back to 1941, Islam fundamentalist Muslims of Bosnia are trying to turn the clock even further back into the Balkan past. They are trying to turn the clock more than 100 years back. Back to the time when Bosnia was part of Turkish Empire.... And non-Muslims were only second class citizens†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.† This article contributed a great deal to cultural misunderstanding about Croats and Muslims If anyone who’s not from those surroundings reads this article, they are going to think that Muslims and Croats in Bosnia are some kind of animals. I am from th...

Law of Obligations (Tort Law)LLB Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Law of Obligations (Tort Law)LLB - Essay Example The employer, on the other hand, may have a claim for damages against Beatrice for her negligence. Employer's Duty of Care and its Breach. In the recent case of Jones v BBC, 2007 WL 2187023 (QBD), where Jones, a freelance sound recordist for defendant BBC claimed that he suffered personal injury when a windmill rotor fell onto his back causing severe spinal injury rendering him paraplegic. In ruling for the claimant, the court stated that since BBC's safety crew had identified a risk of the falling mast, a discussion before filming should have been made to warn the crew not to go beneath it. But the safety crew did not give the warning. Such failure of BBC, through the safety crew, is considered negligent which caused Jones' accident. Thus, the BBC was liable for Jones' injuries. Also, the cameraman and Jones worked as a team because their equipment was linked. Jones with his equipment was following the cameraman who had decided to pass beneath the mast thereby leading Jones into the hazardous area. The cameraman was then in breached of his duty of care and the BBC was vicariousl y liable for that negligence. In Wilsons & Clyde Coal Company, Limited v English, [1938] A.C. 57, the House of Lords stated as follows: " primarily the master has a duty to take due care to provide and maintain a reasonably safe system of working in the mine, and a master, who has delegated the duty of taking due care in the provision of a reasonably safe system of working to a competent servant, is responsible for a defect in the system of which he had no knowledge" By the Jones and Wilsons cases, it is clear that the employer is under a duty of care to provide the employee with competent fellow employees including a qualified medical personnel, properly maintained site and facilities, and to provide a safe place and system of work. The question of whether the employer breached that duty of care depends on the standard of care owed by the employer to its employee and whether it has taken reasonable steps considering the circumstances. (Latimer v A.E.C. Ltd.[1953]) In Jones, the bre ach of the employer's duty consists in BBC's failure (through its safety crew) to discuss with the cameraman and Jones the risk of the falling mast and to warn the cameraman and Jones in unequivocal terms that they must not go beneath it. In Wilsons, the breach by the employer consists of its failure to provide competent fellow employees, properly maintained mine and equipment, and to provide a safe place and system of work. In the case of the employee here, the failure of the employer considering its nature of business to properly provide and maintain a safe place and system of work free from insects such as wasps, to provide sufficient number of medical personnel and qualified immediate treatment which caused the employee's permanent disability to do manual work constitute a breach of the standard care required from the employer. Considering that the company is engaged in hazardous chemicals, not having any emergency doctor onsite is a breach of its standard of care. It can reason ably be expected that injuries are bound to occur in a chemical factory because, by the very nature of its business alone, the environment with chemicals is susceptible to accidents. Hence, the

Sample Statistic, p-value, Confidence interval Assignment

Sample Statistic, p-value, Confidence interval - Assignment Example 1) What is the null hypothesis (H0) tested? H0: Ï€ ≠¤ 0.5 2) What is the alternative hypothesis (H1)? H1: Ï€ > 0.5 3) Sample statistic: a. What is the meaning of the sample statistic? A sample statistic is calculated numerical value that characterizes some aspect of sample set of data, often meant to estimate the real value of the corresponding parameter in an underlying population. What is its value? 0.05 4) Test statistic: a. What is the meaning of the test statistic? The test stat is the distance of the sample proportion from the population proportion in standard errors of the distribution of the test statistic b. What is its value? 0.8944 5) Critical values: a. What is the meaning of critical value? Critical value(s) is a factor used to compute the margin of error. Critical value(s) of the test statistic bounds the rejection region(s) of probability alpha = the risk we are willing to take of rejecting H0 when H0 is true b. What is (are) the critical value(s)? Critical lower value is 1.6449

English Language Learners Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

English Language Learners - Research Paper Example This essay discusses that when one viewed the wealth of materials regarding the topic ‘English Language Learners’ from the online search medium, one would be awed at the magnanimity of results amounting to more than 16 million in various informational categories. The fact signifies the extensive interest on the topic manifested by an array of practitioners and users, especially in the field of education. This area of education would thereby be more explored in the current research to proffer pertinent details that led to the development and continued focus on English Language Learners (EELs) in the contemporary academic setting. This area is chosen to enhance one’s awareness on the subject of interest and thereby enable one to share the knowledge, including crucial information to assist and guide other ELLs that one would potentially interact with in the near future, specifically in terms of improving learning outcomes. The discourse would initially present the de finition of key terms, evolution, historical development and continued growth within this area of academic discipline. Likewise, one would determine current legislation that shapes it in contemporary times; in conjunction with expounding on the best practices related to curriculum and instruction utilized in English as the Second Language (ESL) setting. In addition, one would also identify and describe specific technological applications and future trends that influence and affect English Language Learners (ELLs). ... 1). On the other hand, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) differentiated analogous terms such as ELL, ESL (English as Second Language), LEP (Limited English Proficiency) and EFL (English as Foreign Lanuage), as summarized in Table 1 below: Table 1: Definitions of Key Terms KEY TERMS DEFINITIONS ELL (English Language Learner): an active learner of the English language who may benefit from various types of language support programs. This term is used mainly in the U.S. to describe K–12 students. ESL (English as a Second Language): formerly used to designate ELL students; this term increasingly refers to a program of instruction designed to support the ELL. It is still used to refer to multilingual students in higher education. LEP (Limited English Proficiency): employed by the U.S. Department of Education to refer to ELLs who lack sufficient mastery of English to meet state standards and excel in an English- language classroom. Increasingly, English Language Lear ner (ELL) is used to describe this population, because it highlights learning, rather than suggesting that non-native-English-speaking students are deficient. EFL (English as a Foreign Language)Students:nonnative- English-speaking students who are learning English in a country where English is not the primary language. Source: (National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 2008, p. 2) Historical Development The origin of instruction to ELL was actually traced as early as the 1600s and 1700s when some states were reported to establish private and public schools with bilingual education regulations during the European colonization of the United States

Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis

Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications Market segments characteristics. (Demands type) Business and Residential are the main customer segments for Data and Internet services. According to ERG Report on regulation of access products necessary to deliver the business connectivity, business customers distributed with remote branches/offices nationally, tend to order wholesale services ordered by the headquarter rather than ordered as separate packages by the remote branches and while this is typical for big and organized business, smaller one sometimes find themselves convenient to buy and use the retail offered services (ERG, 2009). Regarding the demand from business customers different needs are found and a clear line between the high-end and low-end business customers can not be set but what separates them is often the quality of services demanded and the way of ordering the services as a complete network solution from one provider only or having different providers and the company itself does the role of the integrator (ERG, 2009). Another common behavior of businesses is the demand for a full solution for communication services covering the range of fixed and mobile services while it is noted that big business and in addition while the standard users are more sensitive for the price, the business big ones stick to well known brands, quality and reliability of services and after sales support provided (ERG, 2009). Big Business Multi-site customers seem to have different needs when compared to residential users or to small business users: Different services such as mobile, fix, data networking, convergent products and value added services; high quality communication services; quick response and good support; dedicated personnel as account manager (ERG, 2009) 5. AMC Company Profile Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) is the biggest Mobile Network operator in Albania and is part of the Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications, the mobile part of OTE SA Greece. Part of Cosmote Group which is operating in 4 countries Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, AMC is operating in Albanian market since 1996 and has constantly dominated the market by means of customer base and revenue. AMC is founded as a state owned company by early 1996 and launched the standard GSM services on May 1996. It was privatized in 2000 when Cosmote Telenor Consortium became the controlling shareholder privatizing 85% of the shares while around 2% were provided to the employees and the rest of 13% remained to the state. Now 97% of the shares it is owned by Cosmote and 3% by the employees. At the time of privatization AMC was offering the services only to about 30,000 postpaid customers and only at xxx% of the territory and xx% of the population. (ASK ILIR) After the privatization, due to the low level of development of fixed telephony, lack of real completion and the investments made by the Greek company Cosmote, the company developed very fast by expanding the network to all the territory of Albania, offering the services to prepaid customers segment and adding a broad range of mobile services such as SMS, MMS, VMS and Internet access. After Vodafone entrance in the Albanian market in 2001, the competition in the market forced the constant decrease of prices, increase of number of services and their quality. The third operator, Eagle Mobile, entered in the market in 2008 and further busted the competition among the three operators. Positioning itself as a low cost services operator, Eagle mobile initiated a price war in the market forcing further decreases of services prices. Today AMC is the biggest Mobile operator in Albania, dominating the market by having around 1.9 million of customers with 43.3% market penetration. AMC is covering 99.8% of the population and 90% of the territory in Albania. Roaming agreements are established with more than 300 GSM operators worldwide. Major mobile product and services offered to individuals are: voice, SMS, MMS, voice mail, internet access, WAP portals and push email for residential. Corporate push email, data internetworking, ISP and VPN services are provided to corporate customers. EDGE technology is implemented covering 86% of the population and 63% of territory offering the possibility to the customers to access the internet through the mobile at acceptable rates. 3G technology is not yet licensed in Albania but the licensing process is expected to start during this year. AMC has around 530 employees highly qualified and trained. Around xx% of employees have a university degree and xx% of them are under the age of xxx. Personnel is organized in three main division, Commercial, Technical, Finance and Operations Administrative. The revenues for 2008 were at 191,272 millions, the OIBDA margin was at 64.7% and the net profit margin was at xxx%. During 2009, due to several factors present in the market such as the third entrant competition, world financial crises and intervention of regulatory body in decreasing the retail and interconnection termination tariffs AMC has faced some challenges on realizing the revenue objectives although the figures were still very good: revenue at 145,744mil, OIBDA at 57% and net profit at xxx%. For the future, considering the expected fierce competition due to also to the entrance of the fourth operator in the market and present financial crisis as well, AMC is looking to realize the targets through orienting the business towards the customer, finding other revenue streams, offering a wide range of products and services, the best technology in the market and best network quality. Offering of 3G services within 2010 and enrichment of products portfolio with services that this technology makes possible are considered as good opportunity for AMC in the near future for increasing the revenue. 6. Current Situation Analysis 6.1 General environment factors Political Albania is a small country located in southeastern Europe bordered by Adriatic Sea, Greece, Montenegro and Kosovo. Territory is 28,748 sq km and population at 3,639,453. After the Second World War, Albania established a communist regime which has ruled the country for 46 years until 1991 when it collapsed and a new democratic system was established. Albania has gone through a difficult process of transforming society to a democratic one and of developing the market economy. The process has proven to be very challenging and although a lot of progress has been done, the country is facing a lot of problems and deficiencies related to corruption, week infrastructure, unemployment, organized crime and sometimes lack of political stability. Since starting the transition process in 1991, the progress of Albania has been impressive although the transition period has taken longer than enough. Albania has established the institutions of democracy, has developed the capacities of public institutions, and has established the foundations of market economy (World Bank, 2010). Albania has joined NATO in 2009, has signed in 2006 the agreement for Stabilization and Association with EU and is one of the potential candidates for joining the EU. As part of EU association agreement, Albania since ten years has transformed and adopted the legislation based on EU recommendations and framework. The legislation improvement has been a continuing process and is performed under the tough monitoring and supervision of EU. In this regard, currently we may say that Albania has a very good legislation frame although there are evident gaps between the legislation and practical implementation of the laws in the country. The country has joined the WTO in 2000 and since then has adopted its international trading policies in accordance with the agreement with this organization. Government policies and strategies on Electronic communications are focused on liberalization, development of market and competition, attraction of foreign direct investments, protection of consumer and are developed in compliance with the National Strategy for Development (covering years 2007-2013) and the EU integration directives. Economy Albania is a country with low to middle income with a gross domestic income per capita of $3740 in 2008. The Economy of the country has been totally transformed during the transition period from a communist economy towards a market-based economy. Albania has achieved a sustainable economic growth, while containing inflation almost constant every year. During the transition period, the structure of economy has been transformed from an agriculture and industry to services and construction. Large scale migration has fueled high workers remittances, which make up around 8-13 percent of GDP (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). During that period the GDP growth rates of around 5-6 percent per year have been achieved while the poverty level has been reduced constantly. The absolute poverty rate was 25.4 % in 2002 but dropped to 18.5 percent in 2005 and to 12.4 percent in 2008. The extreme poverty rate decreased from about 5 to 3.5 percent but inequality has increased significantly (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). According to World Bank data, the Albania GNIP (Gross National Income per Capita) in 2008 was at 3840$ ranking at 113th position while PPP (Purchasing power Parity) was at 7950$ during 2008 ranking at 108th position worldwide (World Bank, 2008). The GDP composition by sectors the year 2009 was as following: agriculture 20.06%, industry 18.8% and services 60.6% (CIA Fact book, 2010). In 2009 unemployment rate was at 12%, population under the poverty line 25%, Inflation rate 2.1% and has been kept within the range of 2-4% since 2002 (CIA Fact book, 2010). Major agriculture products are wheat, corn, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, sugar, grapes and meat while the industrial ones are food processing, textiles and clothing, oil, hydropower, cement, chemicals, mining and basic metals. In 2009 the exports were at 1994 billion while the imports were at 3602 billion (CIA Fact book, 2010). Strong growth has been seen during the years 2002 -2008 at the rate of 14-15% in the construction industry which has been considered as very successful one in the country. Evidences of global crises effects have been shown during 2009 when the GDP growth was 4% less than 2008. The remittances and bank deposits have declined much during 2008 and 2009 causing the slowdown of consumption while imports went down from 4,898 in 2008 to 3.602 Billion in 2009 (INSTAT, 2010). The deposit rates during 2007 were at the average of 6.3% while the bank interest rates were at 13.6% (INSTAT, 2010). Following are shown the main competitiveness indexes for Albania provided by the Harvard University, M. Porter in The Global Competitiveness Report. Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 Based on this report, Albania is categorized in the group of countries being at the stage of efficiency driven economy, has many deficiencies in infrastructure, technology and innovation and market efficiency while fits with the standards of this category for macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, labor market efficiency and institutions, Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 From the above report we can see that corruption, inadequate infrastructure, governing efficiency and bureaucracy and Tax regulations are the main problematic factors for doing business in Albania. Source: World Bank, Doing Business 2010 Albania According to World Bank, Albania is currently well positioned to continue with its strong economic growth and is able to make significant movements towards the integration with the European Union but the government must strongly address the governance problems, maintain a stable macroeconomics framework, improve the business environment and attract investments, upgrade public infrastructure, develop its human capital and make sure that the development benefits are fairly distributed to different categories of society with a special attention to supporting the poor ones (World Bank 2010). Although it has sustained high growth rate by keeping the microeconomic stability during the last decade, Albania remains still one of the poorest countries in Europe showing a large scale of informality in economy, a week and inadequate energetic and transportation infrastructure. Shortages in Energy caused from the dependency from hydropower plants and inadequate distribution infrastructure contribute much in a poor business environment and is a factor for not being successful in the process of attracting the foreign investors. According the European Commission 2009 report , Albania has kept and maintained the macro-economic while the worldwide crises had only a limited impact on the country, inflation was low, exchange rate has been stable, liquidity of banks have been ensured (EU Commission, 2009) Social According to INSTAT, 46 % of the population is between the age of 15-44 years and average age is 32.1 years therefore we may say that Albania has a young population however the population has started aging for the reason of decreased rate of births and longer life rate (INSTAT,2010). The number of people living in urban areas has increased from 35.8% in 1989 to 45% in 2004. Consumer telecom utilization and spending is high and at around 6 % of the total household expenditures. New generation like the new technology of mobiles and are followers of offers. Some future social trends are mentioned below: Urbanization will continue therefore increasing the chances for the fast rollout of broadband technologies Economic inequality will increase, therefore the customer segmentations should be considered and product and services should be customized to each segment needs Family size will decrease People joining the social networks will increase Regulatory The country has adopted the national legislation in accordance with the EU 2003 regulatory recommendations and framework. The Law No. 9918 (May 19, 2008) is the main legal instrument for the electronic communications industry regulation. It defines the responsibilities of government and regulatory institutions for this regulation. Based on this law, the Minister of State for Reforms and Parliamentary relations is the administration body for the electronic communications services and it is responsible for drafting the related legislation and for preparing the plan for radio frequencies. Based on the proposals submitted by the regulatory, the Ministry has the authority to approve the tenders for limited spectrum assignment and universal service providers. In 2009, the Council of Ministers has approved the National Frequency Plan while there is under the approval process the policy for the sector development for the period 2009-2014 which is oriented on liberalization, European integration and convergence. The regulatory authority (AKEP) is an independent, self-financed entity which covers the regulatory tasks for the electronic communications. Under its authority belong also some tasks related to adoption, administration and implementation of legislation. For the industry of Electronic Communications, the regulatory body should safeguard the competition, guaranty the quality of services offered and delivery of them, protect the consumer, license and develop the market through promoting the investment and latest technology implementation. AKEP can impose prices control, set administration fees and define methodologies for regulation of tariffs and defines its own structure and salaries without any intervention from the Ministry. The financing is taken from fees applied to operators and service providers. It reports to the parliamentary assembly. The privatization of Albtelecom and Eagle Mobile, in 2007, increased the level autonomy and independence for the AKEP and the Ministry although the state still owns 25% of the shares. Lately the government has announced these shares will be sold. Another institution was established by the government in April 2007, National Agency on Information Society (NAIS) which role is to coordinate the government activities for the information society and communications. It prepares and proposes the national strategies, draft ICT legislations and coordinate the projects of government in ICT. With regards to market access and authorizations, Albania has moved forward with the gradual process of liberalization. In 1998 the liberalization started with the rural local networks, then in 2003 was liberalized the operations for the domestic long-distances networks and in 2005 for international ones. In 2006 the market was liberalized for urban operation of local alternative providers. The law of 2008, established the concept of â€Å"General authorization† based on which the networks and services which do not require the usage of limited resources could start operating without getting a license but just by sending a notification for their start to the regulatory authority within 15 days of operations. Based on this, the need for getting the license remained only for the frequencies and numbers. Based on the law, AKEP can use the SMP (Significant Market Power) designation mechanism in order to regulate the competition in the market. The decision for designation should be based on a Market Analysis procedure results. In 2007 AKEP has designated AMC and Vodafone as SMP in the market of retail mobile services and for the wholesale voice termination. Based on that, AKEP imposed to these two operators obligations related to non-discrimination, transparency in RIO (Reference Interconnection Offer), imposed the prices of interconnect termination by cutting them by 31.2%% and applied a reduction in retailed prices of 30% for on-net and 40%for the off-net calls for a period of two years. In 2007, AKEP has designated Albtelecom as SMP in six markets related to fixed voice services offered to customers and for voice transit services. Obligations were set to Albtelecom including the imposed reduction of retail and transit tariffs. Following a review of the markets in wholesale and retail tariffs done in 2009, the competitive safeguards LLU and CS/CPS were imposed to Albtelecom which are not yet implemented. AKEP has already launched several markets analysis procedures on most of the wholesale and retail markets such as: Mobile wholesale market for call termination, access and call origination; fixed retail access and call services for wholesale interconnection. In December 2009, AKEP introduced to operators a reference document with the model of BULRAIC cost calculations for mobile services MTR based on which the data have been provided to AKEP by the operators. As the result of these analyses, it is expected that AKEP imposes the Mobile Terminated Rates for national calls while the rates for the international calls will be reviewed. During 2009 AKEP has launched the market analysis and public consultation process for wholesale and retail leased lines markets and finalization of it is expected by mid 2010. As result of public consultation process, is expected to be defined the services, demands, providers, supply structure and markets and then based on these is expected that regulatory designates the SMP operators for which the tariffs for their services will be regulated. During Q1 2010, AKEP has launched a public consultation process on â€Å"The rule for the indexes of service quality† which is expected to be finalized during Q1 2010. The above mentioned actions which regard regulation of competitions can be considered as steps to develop the competitive safeguards environment, however we can mention other steps not yet realized by the regulatory although the process has already started. Such missing measurements are: number portability, carrier selection and pre-selection (CS, CSP) not in practice yet, local loop un-bundling (LLU) not in practice yet, national roaming, MVNO and whole sale line rental. Number portability public consultation is in progress and based on AKEP plans, the service will be available in the market by end 2010 while the process for licensing for wireless broadband spectrum (WiMAX and mobile 3G) are expected to start with public consultations opening by March 2010 and be finalized by mid 2010. According to latest European Commission assessment, there were noted some progress including the alignment of primary legislation, while still some secondary lines laws have to be adopted yet, market liberalization and competition still are at early stage and administrative capacities of the ministry and regulator was not sufficient (Cullen, 2008). Technological In the area of mobile communication technology, GSM 2.75 technology (EDGE) is implemented since 2006 and now three operators offer it to the customers, AMC, Vodafone and Eagle. Regulatory has not yet provided the licensing for the Mobile 3G CDMA and broadband technologies HSPA and HSPA+. There is a delay in this aspect and the licensing for 3G technologies may be provided only now, at the end of lifecycle for 3G technology and at the time that other markets have started trialing and adopting the 4G network technologies (LTE). Video Digital Broadcasting (DVB-H) services are offered by three operators (DIGITALB, TRING and TV SHIJAKU) already to the market through terrestrial or satellite broadcasting. Number of PCs and PC utilization at home is low and estimated to xxx% of the houses while the utilization in companies and government is high. Internet services are provided in the country by more than 36 ISPs and technology for access is mainly fixed broadband xDSL, hybrid fiber coax and dial-up. Wireless broadband spectrum available for WiMAX is not licensed yet by the regulatory while the WiFi networks are frequently used for the Internet access in cafes. Points to multipoint systems such as LMDS are not present in the country. Fiber networks are present only in the main cities such as Tirana and Durres and implemented by some ISP-s for the purposes of internet access or triple play services provided to the end user. Fiber backbone is missing and the mobile operators backbone is mainly build of microwave transmission links based on SDH or PDH technology. Two of mobile operators have taken already some steps on offering the mobile fix substitution services to the customers but not providing the convergence of the mobile and fix telephone number. Content development is weak and mainly is based on external international resources. The main technology factors that will shape the next decade of electronic communications development are the following: Convergence of networks Fixed and mobile network differences will vanish and a common network providing integrated services will serve the customers. Mobile to fix substitution and integration has already started Convergence of network technologies to an all IP networks Traditional telecom networks and internet (ISP) will merge together to a next generation carrier network which is based on all IP technology. Services will clearly separate from transport networks and competition will be focused and oriented on services Convergence of services Convergence of networks and network technology will make possible to design, combine and deliver to the customer services which traditionally have been provided before by different technology, networks and vendors such as triple play services, (video, voice and internet) provided all at one network access point, accessed through same application environment which run in many different types of devices. Unified services access and unified messaging Customers can access through same software environment and through same or different devices and from everywhere (office, home, when traveling) same set of applications and services. Reduction of cost for hardware and increase of software role and power Software will run on standard hardware. Big software players will play a big role while the network HW vendors will become more software oriented. Growth of video content and internet utilization while the voice remains strong Demands for capacities will be huge while the needs for integrating all sets of services at one management and control will increase. Increase of connected number and types of devices Web connected devices will increase. PCs, mobiles, TVs, game devices, etc. There will be a need to standardize the applications to all these set of devices. 6.2 Electronic communications industry analysis We will use the M. Porters â€Å"Five forces model† for analyzing the industry. We selected this model as being already one of the most worldwide known, widely recognized and used model for industry analysis. The analysis done based on that model will be used for business strategy development recommendations. Market overview General data The following graphs show the sector revenue growth and market in 2008 compared to the other countries in the region. Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Mobile telephony In May 1996, AMC a state owned company by this time launched for the first time in Albania the GSM services becoming one of the first countries in the region to offer such services. Currently there are three companies operating in the mobile services market AMC, Vodafone and Eagle Mobile. The fourth operator is licensed and is expected to launch the services on July 2010. On July 2009, the mobile customers were at 3.52 millions, mobile service penetration was at 110% of the population, and more than 99% of population and 90% of territory is covered by GSM signal. Around 93.8% of customers are prepaid and 6.2% are postpaid. AMC has 43.30% of customer base, Vodafone AL 43.00% and Eagle 13.7 % (Cullen, 2010). Technology used is 2G EDGE while 3G spectrum is expected to be licensed by mid 2010. Main services offered in the market are voice, SMS, MMS, WAP, internet access and GPRS intranets. 43.3% of market share is owed by AMC, 43% by Vodafone and 13.4% by Eagle Mobile. Fixed telephony Albtelecom is the incumbent fixed operator in the market while more than 70 alternative operators operate mainly in the rural zones. Number of fixed telephony users by July 2009 end was 360,000 which represents 11.3% penetration while alternative operators customers are at 49, 690 representing 14% of this number(Cullen, 2010). 99.92 % of the fixed telephony is digitized. In July 2009 the numbers of PSTN lines were at 359,100, ISDN lines at 929, lines given to residential customers were at 338,300 and to business customers at 21,700 (Cullen, 2010). Leased lines and Data services Albtelecom and the three mobile operators are the providers of leased lines services at national and international access. Albtelecom has had the monopoly of such services until few years ago and kept it for international access until 2006. Albtelecom has implemented a few fiber lines connecting some main cities while internationally have access of fiber backbones to Italy and to Greece and other Adriatic see countries through the Adria fiber backbone. The mobile operators have not build yet a backbone to be used for leasing yet but are offering for the moment free capacities of their backbone build for their core business, mobile services. Besides AMC, there are not any clear evidences and data on the leased lines or data services provided by the other two mobile operators (Vodafone and Eagle Mobile). Albtelecom and mobile operators are moving forward their plans for implementation of a national Fiber backbone which will serve future needs for capacities nationally or for international access. AMC has provided data internetworking services to banks and other business or government institutions. More than 200 local networks of xxx customers are internetworked nationally and xxxx connections to international networks are established. COMPLETE STATISTICS Use Cullen report data on lease lines (pages 53-67, here are prices only) Broadband and Internet Services These services are offered for the moment by fixed operators while the mobile broadband services are not yet licensed by regulatory authority. Broadband penetration rate was at 2.51 % on January 2010 and was the lowest one in the region while EU penetration was at 23.9% (Cullen, 2010). About 36 ISPs are operating in Albania mainly providing the services in Tirana area and few in the other western cities. According to Cullen report, by January 2010, the number of broadband connections was 80,000, narrowband connections were at 28,512 and 30% of people are regularly using the Internet (Cullen, 2010). Number of internet users in 2008, including the mobile internet access users, was at 580,000. Main operators are Albtelecom, Abisnet, ABCOM, Alfa cable and ASC (AKEP, 2010). 65% of broadband market is owned by Albtelecom and 35% by the alternative operators. Broadband technology used is ADSL and HFC. The following table shows the internet penetration progress over the years. Source: (Internet world statistics, 2010) Albtelecom offers upstream capacities of internet access to retail customers from 512Kbps to 4Mbps while Abisnet from 1 to 3 Mbps. Albtelecom is the main operator offering to other ISP-s high capacity access to internet international gateway through fiber. Other alternative operators access the international gateways through Albtelecom use other alternative microwave links. The internet backbone access capacity in October 2009 was 5.5GB and was one of the lowest in the region. The threat for substitute product and services AMC offers Data Internetworking and Internet services through ISP in addition to its core business mobile services. International IP transit services are provided through the partnership established with OTEGlobe which is an international data services provider. The type of service is IP transit, (Layer3 Networking) where turnkey IP network is provided through delivering the end routers, installation and configurations of them and IP packet encryption as well. IP capacities provided are dedicated. Availability of services is above 99.9% and quality of network is very good. For such type of data services, substitute services in the market are considered the MPLS VPN-s, satellite data links, internet VPN services, GPRS Intranets and data dial-up. MPLS VPNs are becoming standard services worldwide but not yet present in the local market. This comes mainly due to the reasons of lack of a dedicated data backbone in the country, the lack of development of IP backbones technologies by the operators for the moment and the lack of fiber backbones. Since the data IP backbone is missing for the moment and establishing it will need time and big investments, MPLS VPNs may present a substitution threat after some years. There are not operators offering such products for the moment. Satellite data links are established through satellite terminals installed at the local remote offices locations. Links are aggregated to the satellite nub and then connected to the headquarter network. These links have the advantage of installing anywhere in the country and this represent an advantage considering the terrain but are more convenient to be used as point to point links rather than in a distributed multipoint top Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) Analysis Albanian Mobile Communications Market segments characteristics. (Demands type) Business and Residential are the main customer segments for Data and Internet services. According to ERG Report on regulation of access products necessary to deliver the business connectivity, business customers distributed with remote branches/offices nationally, tend to order wholesale services ordered by the headquarter rather than ordered as separate packages by the remote branches and while this is typical for big and organized business, smaller one sometimes find themselves convenient to buy and use the retail offered services (ERG, 2009). Regarding the demand from business customers different needs are found and a clear line between the high-end and low-end business customers can not be set but what separates them is often the quality of services demanded and the way of ordering the services as a complete network solution from one provider only or having different providers and the company itself does the role of the integrator (ERG, 2009). Another common behavior of businesses is the demand for a full solution for communication services covering the range of fixed and mobile services while it is noted that big business and in addition while the standard users are more sensitive for the price, the business big ones stick to well known brands, quality and reliability of services and after sales support provided (ERG, 2009). Big Business Multi-site customers seem to have different needs when compared to residential users or to small business users: Different services such as mobile, fix, data networking, convergent products and value added services; high quality communication services; quick response and good support; dedicated personnel as account manager (ERG, 2009) 5. AMC Company Profile Albanian Mobile Communications (AMC) is the biggest Mobile Network operator in Albania and is part of the Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications, the mobile part of OTE SA Greece. Part of Cosmote Group which is operating in 4 countries Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, AMC is operating in Albanian market since 1996 and has constantly dominated the market by means of customer base and revenue. AMC is founded as a state owned company by early 1996 and launched the standard GSM services on May 1996. It was privatized in 2000 when Cosmote Telenor Consortium became the controlling shareholder privatizing 85% of the shares while around 2% were provided to the employees and the rest of 13% remained to the state. Now 97% of the shares it is owned by Cosmote and 3% by the employees. At the time of privatization AMC was offering the services only to about 30,000 postpaid customers and only at xxx% of the territory and xx% of the population. (ASK ILIR) After the privatization, due to the low level of development of fixed telephony, lack of real completion and the investments made by the Greek company Cosmote, the company developed very fast by expanding the network to all the territory of Albania, offering the services to prepaid customers segment and adding a broad range of mobile services such as SMS, MMS, VMS and Internet access. After Vodafone entrance in the Albanian market in 2001, the competition in the market forced the constant decrease of prices, increase of number of services and their quality. The third operator, Eagle Mobile, entered in the market in 2008 and further busted the competition among the three operators. Positioning itself as a low cost services operator, Eagle mobile initiated a price war in the market forcing further decreases of services prices. Today AMC is the biggest Mobile operator in Albania, dominating the market by having around 1.9 million of customers with 43.3% market penetration. AMC is covering 99.8% of the population and 90% of the territory in Albania. Roaming agreements are established with more than 300 GSM operators worldwide. Major mobile product and services offered to individuals are: voice, SMS, MMS, voice mail, internet access, WAP portals and push email for residential. Corporate push email, data internetworking, ISP and VPN services are provided to corporate customers. EDGE technology is implemented covering 86% of the population and 63% of territory offering the possibility to the customers to access the internet through the mobile at acceptable rates. 3G technology is not yet licensed in Albania but the licensing process is expected to start during this year. AMC has around 530 employees highly qualified and trained. Around xx% of employees have a university degree and xx% of them are under the age of xxx. Personnel is organized in three main division, Commercial, Technical, Finance and Operations Administrative. The revenues for 2008 were at 191,272 millions, the OIBDA margin was at 64.7% and the net profit margin was at xxx%. During 2009, due to several factors present in the market such as the third entrant competition, world financial crises and intervention of regulatory body in decreasing the retail and interconnection termination tariffs AMC has faced some challenges on realizing the revenue objectives although the figures were still very good: revenue at 145,744mil, OIBDA at 57% and net profit at xxx%. For the future, considering the expected fierce competition due to also to the entrance of the fourth operator in the market and present financial crisis as well, AMC is looking to realize the targets through orienting the business towards the customer, finding other revenue streams, offering a wide range of products and services, the best technology in the market and best network quality. Offering of 3G services within 2010 and enrichment of products portfolio with services that this technology makes possible are considered as good opportunity for AMC in the near future for increasing the revenue. 6. Current Situation Analysis 6.1 General environment factors Political Albania is a small country located in southeastern Europe bordered by Adriatic Sea, Greece, Montenegro and Kosovo. Territory is 28,748 sq km and population at 3,639,453. After the Second World War, Albania established a communist regime which has ruled the country for 46 years until 1991 when it collapsed and a new democratic system was established. Albania has gone through a difficult process of transforming society to a democratic one and of developing the market economy. The process has proven to be very challenging and although a lot of progress has been done, the country is facing a lot of problems and deficiencies related to corruption, week infrastructure, unemployment, organized crime and sometimes lack of political stability. Since starting the transition process in 1991, the progress of Albania has been impressive although the transition period has taken longer than enough. Albania has established the institutions of democracy, has developed the capacities of public institutions, and has established the foundations of market economy (World Bank, 2010). Albania has joined NATO in 2009, has signed in 2006 the agreement for Stabilization and Association with EU and is one of the potential candidates for joining the EU. As part of EU association agreement, Albania since ten years has transformed and adopted the legislation based on EU recommendations and framework. The legislation improvement has been a continuing process and is performed under the tough monitoring and supervision of EU. In this regard, currently we may say that Albania has a very good legislation frame although there are evident gaps between the legislation and practical implementation of the laws in the country. The country has joined the WTO in 2000 and since then has adopted its international trading policies in accordance with the agreement with this organization. Government policies and strategies on Electronic communications are focused on liberalization, development of market and competition, attraction of foreign direct investments, protection of consumer and are developed in compliance with the National Strategy for Development (covering years 2007-2013) and the EU integration directives. Economy Albania is a country with low to middle income with a gross domestic income per capita of $3740 in 2008. The Economy of the country has been totally transformed during the transition period from a communist economy towards a market-based economy. Albania has achieved a sustainable economic growth, while containing inflation almost constant every year. During the transition period, the structure of economy has been transformed from an agriculture and industry to services and construction. Large scale migration has fueled high workers remittances, which make up around 8-13 percent of GDP (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). During that period the GDP growth rates of around 5-6 percent per year have been achieved while the poverty level has been reduced constantly. The absolute poverty rate was 25.4 % in 2002 but dropped to 18.5 percent in 2005 and to 12.4 percent in 2008. The extreme poverty rate decreased from about 5 to 3.5 percent but inequality has increased significantly (World Bank Web Page, 2010, Albania in Brief). According to World Bank data, the Albania GNIP (Gross National Income per Capita) in 2008 was at 3840$ ranking at 113th position while PPP (Purchasing power Parity) was at 7950$ during 2008 ranking at 108th position worldwide (World Bank, 2008). The GDP composition by sectors the year 2009 was as following: agriculture 20.06%, industry 18.8% and services 60.6% (CIA Fact book, 2010). In 2009 unemployment rate was at 12%, population under the poverty line 25%, Inflation rate 2.1% and has been kept within the range of 2-4% since 2002 (CIA Fact book, 2010). Major agriculture products are wheat, corn, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, sugar, grapes and meat while the industrial ones are food processing, textiles and clothing, oil, hydropower, cement, chemicals, mining and basic metals. In 2009 the exports were at 1994 billion while the imports were at 3602 billion (CIA Fact book, 2010). Strong growth has been seen during the years 2002 -2008 at the rate of 14-15% in the construction industry which has been considered as very successful one in the country. Evidences of global crises effects have been shown during 2009 when the GDP growth was 4% less than 2008. The remittances and bank deposits have declined much during 2008 and 2009 causing the slowdown of consumption while imports went down from 4,898 in 2008 to 3.602 Billion in 2009 (INSTAT, 2010). The deposit rates during 2007 were at the average of 6.3% while the bank interest rates were at 13.6% (INSTAT, 2010). Following are shown the main competitiveness indexes for Albania provided by the Harvard University, M. Porter in The Global Competitiveness Report. Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 Based on this report, Albania is categorized in the group of countries being at the stage of efficiency driven economy, has many deficiencies in infrastructure, technology and innovation and market efficiency while fits with the standards of this category for macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, labor market efficiency and institutions, Source: M. Porter, The Global Competitiveness Report, 2008-2009 From the above report we can see that corruption, inadequate infrastructure, governing efficiency and bureaucracy and Tax regulations are the main problematic factors for doing business in Albania. Source: World Bank, Doing Business 2010 Albania According to World Bank, Albania is currently well positioned to continue with its strong economic growth and is able to make significant movements towards the integration with the European Union but the government must strongly address the governance problems, maintain a stable macroeconomics framework, improve the business environment and attract investments, upgrade public infrastructure, develop its human capital and make sure that the development benefits are fairly distributed to different categories of society with a special attention to supporting the poor ones (World Bank 2010). Although it has sustained high growth rate by keeping the microeconomic stability during the last decade, Albania remains still one of the poorest countries in Europe showing a large scale of informality in economy, a week and inadequate energetic and transportation infrastructure. Shortages in Energy caused from the dependency from hydropower plants and inadequate distribution infrastructure contribute much in a poor business environment and is a factor for not being successful in the process of attracting the foreign investors. According the European Commission 2009 report , Albania has kept and maintained the macro-economic while the worldwide crises had only a limited impact on the country, inflation was low, exchange rate has been stable, liquidity of banks have been ensured (EU Commission, 2009) Social According to INSTAT, 46 % of the population is between the age of 15-44 years and average age is 32.1 years therefore we may say that Albania has a young population however the population has started aging for the reason of decreased rate of births and longer life rate (INSTAT,2010). The number of people living in urban areas has increased from 35.8% in 1989 to 45% in 2004. Consumer telecom utilization and spending is high and at around 6 % of the total household expenditures. New generation like the new technology of mobiles and are followers of offers. Some future social trends are mentioned below: Urbanization will continue therefore increasing the chances for the fast rollout of broadband technologies Economic inequality will increase, therefore the customer segmentations should be considered and product and services should be customized to each segment needs Family size will decrease People joining the social networks will increase Regulatory The country has adopted the national legislation in accordance with the EU 2003 regulatory recommendations and framework. The Law No. 9918 (May 19, 2008) is the main legal instrument for the electronic communications industry regulation. It defines the responsibilities of government and regulatory institutions for this regulation. Based on this law, the Minister of State for Reforms and Parliamentary relations is the administration body for the electronic communications services and it is responsible for drafting the related legislation and for preparing the plan for radio frequencies. Based on the proposals submitted by the regulatory, the Ministry has the authority to approve the tenders for limited spectrum assignment and universal service providers. In 2009, the Council of Ministers has approved the National Frequency Plan while there is under the approval process the policy for the sector development for the period 2009-2014 which is oriented on liberalization, European integration and convergence. The regulatory authority (AKEP) is an independent, self-financed entity which covers the regulatory tasks for the electronic communications. Under its authority belong also some tasks related to adoption, administration and implementation of legislation. For the industry of Electronic Communications, the regulatory body should safeguard the competition, guaranty the quality of services offered and delivery of them, protect the consumer, license and develop the market through promoting the investment and latest technology implementation. AKEP can impose prices control, set administration fees and define methodologies for regulation of tariffs and defines its own structure and salaries without any intervention from the Ministry. The financing is taken from fees applied to operators and service providers. It reports to the parliamentary assembly. The privatization of Albtelecom and Eagle Mobile, in 2007, increased the level autonomy and independence for the AKEP and the Ministry although the state still owns 25% of the shares. Lately the government has announced these shares will be sold. Another institution was established by the government in April 2007, National Agency on Information Society (NAIS) which role is to coordinate the government activities for the information society and communications. It prepares and proposes the national strategies, draft ICT legislations and coordinate the projects of government in ICT. With regards to market access and authorizations, Albania has moved forward with the gradual process of liberalization. In 1998 the liberalization started with the rural local networks, then in 2003 was liberalized the operations for the domestic long-distances networks and in 2005 for international ones. In 2006 the market was liberalized for urban operation of local alternative providers. The law of 2008, established the concept of â€Å"General authorization† based on which the networks and services which do not require the usage of limited resources could start operating without getting a license but just by sending a notification for their start to the regulatory authority within 15 days of operations. Based on this, the need for getting the license remained only for the frequencies and numbers. Based on the law, AKEP can use the SMP (Significant Market Power) designation mechanism in order to regulate the competition in the market. The decision for designation should be based on a Market Analysis procedure results. In 2007 AKEP has designated AMC and Vodafone as SMP in the market of retail mobile services and for the wholesale voice termination. Based on that, AKEP imposed to these two operators obligations related to non-discrimination, transparency in RIO (Reference Interconnection Offer), imposed the prices of interconnect termination by cutting them by 31.2%% and applied a reduction in retailed prices of 30% for on-net and 40%for the off-net calls for a period of two years. In 2007, AKEP has designated Albtelecom as SMP in six markets related to fixed voice services offered to customers and for voice transit services. Obligations were set to Albtelecom including the imposed reduction of retail and transit tariffs. Following a review of the markets in wholesale and retail tariffs done in 2009, the competitive safeguards LLU and CS/CPS were imposed to Albtelecom which are not yet implemented. AKEP has already launched several markets analysis procedures on most of the wholesale and retail markets such as: Mobile wholesale market for call termination, access and call origination; fixed retail access and call services for wholesale interconnection. In December 2009, AKEP introduced to operators a reference document with the model of BULRAIC cost calculations for mobile services MTR based on which the data have been provided to AKEP by the operators. As the result of these analyses, it is expected that AKEP imposes the Mobile Terminated Rates for national calls while the rates for the international calls will be reviewed. During 2009 AKEP has launched the market analysis and public consultation process for wholesale and retail leased lines markets and finalization of it is expected by mid 2010. As result of public consultation process, is expected to be defined the services, demands, providers, supply structure and markets and then based on these is expected that regulatory designates the SMP operators for which the tariffs for their services will be regulated. During Q1 2010, AKEP has launched a public consultation process on â€Å"The rule for the indexes of service quality† which is expected to be finalized during Q1 2010. The above mentioned actions which regard regulation of competitions can be considered as steps to develop the competitive safeguards environment, however we can mention other steps not yet realized by the regulatory although the process has already started. Such missing measurements are: number portability, carrier selection and pre-selection (CS, CSP) not in practice yet, local loop un-bundling (LLU) not in practice yet, national roaming, MVNO and whole sale line rental. Number portability public consultation is in progress and based on AKEP plans, the service will be available in the market by end 2010 while the process for licensing for wireless broadband spectrum (WiMAX and mobile 3G) are expected to start with public consultations opening by March 2010 and be finalized by mid 2010. According to latest European Commission assessment, there were noted some progress including the alignment of primary legislation, while still some secondary lines laws have to be adopted yet, market liberalization and competition still are at early stage and administrative capacities of the ministry and regulator was not sufficient (Cullen, 2008). Technological In the area of mobile communication technology, GSM 2.75 technology (EDGE) is implemented since 2006 and now three operators offer it to the customers, AMC, Vodafone and Eagle. Regulatory has not yet provided the licensing for the Mobile 3G CDMA and broadband technologies HSPA and HSPA+. There is a delay in this aspect and the licensing for 3G technologies may be provided only now, at the end of lifecycle for 3G technology and at the time that other markets have started trialing and adopting the 4G network technologies (LTE). Video Digital Broadcasting (DVB-H) services are offered by three operators (DIGITALB, TRING and TV SHIJAKU) already to the market through terrestrial or satellite broadcasting. Number of PCs and PC utilization at home is low and estimated to xxx% of the houses while the utilization in companies and government is high. Internet services are provided in the country by more than 36 ISPs and technology for access is mainly fixed broadband xDSL, hybrid fiber coax and dial-up. Wireless broadband spectrum available for WiMAX is not licensed yet by the regulatory while the WiFi networks are frequently used for the Internet access in cafes. Points to multipoint systems such as LMDS are not present in the country. Fiber networks are present only in the main cities such as Tirana and Durres and implemented by some ISP-s for the purposes of internet access or triple play services provided to the end user. Fiber backbone is missing and the mobile operators backbone is mainly build of microwave transmission links based on SDH or PDH technology. Two of mobile operators have taken already some steps on offering the mobile fix substitution services to the customers but not providing the convergence of the mobile and fix telephone number. Content development is weak and mainly is based on external international resources. The main technology factors that will shape the next decade of electronic communications development are the following: Convergence of networks Fixed and mobile network differences will vanish and a common network providing integrated services will serve the customers. Mobile to fix substitution and integration has already started Convergence of network technologies to an all IP networks Traditional telecom networks and internet (ISP) will merge together to a next generation carrier network which is based on all IP technology. Services will clearly separate from transport networks and competition will be focused and oriented on services Convergence of services Convergence of networks and network technology will make possible to design, combine and deliver to the customer services which traditionally have been provided before by different technology, networks and vendors such as triple play services, (video, voice and internet) provided all at one network access point, accessed through same application environment which run in many different types of devices. Unified services access and unified messaging Customers can access through same software environment and through same or different devices and from everywhere (office, home, when traveling) same set of applications and services. Reduction of cost for hardware and increase of software role and power Software will run on standard hardware. Big software players will play a big role while the network HW vendors will become more software oriented. Growth of video content and internet utilization while the voice remains strong Demands for capacities will be huge while the needs for integrating all sets of services at one management and control will increase. Increase of connected number and types of devices Web connected devices will increase. PCs, mobiles, TVs, game devices, etc. There will be a need to standardize the applications to all these set of devices. 6.2 Electronic communications industry analysis We will use the M. Porters â€Å"Five forces model† for analyzing the industry. We selected this model as being already one of the most worldwide known, widely recognized and used model for industry analysis. The analysis done based on that model will be used for business strategy development recommendations. Market overview General data The following graphs show the sector revenue growth and market in 2008 compared to the other countries in the region. Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Source: (Cullen Report, 2010) Mobile telephony In May 1996, AMC a state owned company by this time launched for the first time in Albania the GSM services becoming one of the first countries in the region to offer such services. Currently there are three companies operating in the mobile services market AMC, Vodafone and Eagle Mobile. The fourth operator is licensed and is expected to launch the services on July 2010. On July 2009, the mobile customers were at 3.52 millions, mobile service penetration was at 110% of the population, and more than 99% of population and 90% of territory is covered by GSM signal. Around 93.8% of customers are prepaid and 6.2% are postpaid. AMC has 43.30% of customer base, Vodafone AL 43.00% and Eagle 13.7 % (Cullen, 2010). Technology used is 2G EDGE while 3G spectrum is expected to be licensed by mid 2010. Main services offered in the market are voice, SMS, MMS, WAP, internet access and GPRS intranets. 43.3% of market share is owed by AMC, 43% by Vodafone and 13.4% by Eagle Mobile. Fixed telephony Albtelecom is the incumbent fixed operator in the market while more than 70 alternative operators operate mainly in the rural zones. Number of fixed telephony users by July 2009 end was 360,000 which represents 11.3% penetration while alternative operators customers are at 49, 690 representing 14% of this number(Cullen, 2010). 99.92 % of the fixed telephony is digitized. In July 2009 the numbers of PSTN lines were at 359,100, ISDN lines at 929, lines given to residential customers were at 338,300 and to business customers at 21,700 (Cullen, 2010). Leased lines and Data services Albtelecom and the three mobile operators are the providers of leased lines services at national and international access. Albtelecom has had the monopoly of such services until few years ago and kept it for international access until 2006. Albtelecom has implemented a few fiber lines connecting some main cities while internationally have access of fiber backbones to Italy and to Greece and other Adriatic see countries through the Adria fiber backbone. The mobile operators have not build yet a backbone to be used for leasing yet but are offering for the moment free capacities of their backbone build for their core business, mobile services. Besides AMC, there are not any clear evidences and data on the leased lines or data services provided by the other two mobile operators (Vodafone and Eagle Mobile). Albtelecom and mobile operators are moving forward their plans for implementation of a national Fiber backbone which will serve future needs for capacities nationally or for international access. AMC has provided data internetworking services to banks and other business or government institutions. More than 200 local networks of xxx customers are internetworked nationally and xxxx connections to international networks are established. COMPLETE STATISTICS Use Cullen report data on lease lines (pages 53-67, here are prices only) Broadband and Internet Services These services are offered for the moment by fixed operators while the mobile broadband services are not yet licensed by regulatory authority. Broadband penetration rate was at 2.51 % on January 2010 and was the lowest one in the region while EU penetration was at 23.9% (Cullen, 2010). About 36 ISPs are operating in Albania mainly providing the services in Tirana area and few in the other western cities. According to Cullen report, by January 2010, the number of broadband connections was 80,000, narrowband connections were at 28,512 and 30% of people are regularly using the Internet (Cullen, 2010). Number of internet users in 2008, including the mobile internet access users, was at 580,000. Main operators are Albtelecom, Abisnet, ABCOM, Alfa cable and ASC (AKEP, 2010). 65% of broadband market is owned by Albtelecom and 35% by the alternative operators. Broadband technology used is ADSL and HFC. The following table shows the internet penetration progress over the years. Source: (Internet world statistics, 2010) Albtelecom offers upstream capacities of internet access to retail customers from 512Kbps to 4Mbps while Abisnet from 1 to 3 Mbps. Albtelecom is the main operator offering to other ISP-s high capacity access to internet international gateway through fiber. Other alternative operators access the international gateways through Albtelecom use other alternative microwave links. The internet backbone access capacity in October 2009 was 5.5GB and was one of the lowest in the region. The threat for substitute product and services AMC offers Data Internetworking and Internet services through ISP in addition to its core business mobile services. International IP transit services are provided through the partnership established with OTEGlobe which is an international data services provider. The type of service is IP transit, (Layer3 Networking) where turnkey IP network is provided through delivering the end routers, installation and configurations of them and IP packet encryption as well. IP capacities provided are dedicated. Availability of services is above 99.9% and quality of network is very good. For such type of data services, substitute services in the market are considered the MPLS VPN-s, satellite data links, internet VPN services, GPRS Intranets and data dial-up. MPLS VPNs are becoming standard services worldwide but not yet present in the local market. This comes mainly due to the reasons of lack of a dedicated data backbone in the country, the lack of development of IP backbones technologies by the operators for the moment and the lack of fiber backbones. Since the data IP backbone is missing for the moment and establishing it will need time and big investments, MPLS VPNs may present a substitution threat after some years. There are not operators offering such products for the moment. Satellite data links are established through satellite terminals installed at the local remote offices locations. Links are aggregated to the satellite nub and then connected to the headquarter network. These links have the advantage of installing anywhere in the country and this represent an advantage considering the terrain but are more convenient to be used as point to point links rather than in a distributed multipoint top