• E-GOVERNMENT, AUSTRALIA: The Farmwide Regional Access Network program (www.farmwide.com.au/projects) now has more than 20% of Australian farmers online, compared to only 1% when the program began three years ago. The country's largest farming group has created the Farmwide Community portal, which information vital to farming enterprises, such as the latest on commodity markets, weather, farming machinery and other agricultural inputs, and international and local farming news. http://www.forbes.com/asap/00/0529/068.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, EMPOWERING NEIGHBORHOODS: Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (NKLA), a collaboration of the municipality and UCLA, with funding from organizations such as Microsoft and the FannieMae Foundation, (www.nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu) knits together municipal databases and inspection records, looks for indicators of urban decay, and plots the information on city maps posted on its Web site.  Citizens and public officials can see at a glance which communities might be headed for trouble; private-sector developers can capitalize on this themselves, spotting potential investment opportunities such as a cluster of buildings in financial difficulty. NKLA even has developed a code-enforcement tracking system that enables residents to monitor the city of Los Angeles' responses to housing code complaints and violations--similar to the way online customers can track their FedEx packages.  http://www.forbes.com/asap/00/0529/068.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, IRS: Truly paperless electronic tax filing will be available for most taxpayers this year from the IRS, which projected Tuesday that a record 42 million will choose to file electronically, reports AP. People will select their own five-digit personal identification numbers instead of mailing in a separate paper signature form, which had hindered more rapid growth of e-filing, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti said. About 35 million returns were e-filed in 2000, including some with PINs chosen for taxpayers by the IRS.
• E-GOVERNMENT, MEDICINE: At the Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, doctors make use of the Internet Tumor Board to discuss care options and treatment management for breast cancer patients, sharing digitized radiology pictures and confering remotely without requiring the medical evacuation of patients for examination. According to the project’s manager, “most [military] facilities don’t have cancer specialists, and would just blindly send patients to” the Tripler Center. As a result of the online Board meetings, 19 unnecessary patient evacuations have been avoided, at an estimated cost of $5,000 each. http://www.hqda.army.mil/leadingchange/hotitems.htm#Army Projects
• E-GOVERNMENT, PROCUREMENT: Florida is giving its employees Visa cards to pay for purchases less than $25,000, then is paying the bills electronically using electronic data interchange. By eliminating the paper-based invoicing and check-paying for those purchases, Florida expects to save as much as 80% on the $80 to $150 cost of making purchases via paper and save $750,000 annually by avoiding late payments. (Federal Computer Week, http://www.fcw.com/supplements/SL50/2000/Florida.asp, ).
• E-GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC OPINION:  Americans say the most important benefits of e-government will be first to make government more accountable (36%), allow more public access to information (23%), second to make government more efficient and cost effective (21%), and third to make government services more convenient (13%). http://www.excelgov.org/egovpoll/index.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC OPINION:  By more than two to one, Americans want to proceed slowly (65%) rather than quickly (30%) in implementing e-government because of concerns about security, privacy, and access. http://www.excelgov.org/egovpoll/index.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC OPINION:  Nearly seven in ten Americans (68%), including those who do not use the Internet, believe that investing tax dollars in e-government should be a priority.  After being given specific examples of e-government, respondents were asked again to assess its importance.  Fully 77% then said that investing tax dollars in e-government should be a medium to high priority. http://www.excelgov.org/egovpoll/index.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC OPINION: By more than a five-to-one margin (56% to 11%), the general public anticipates that the impact of e-government will be positive.  Of those who described themselves as frequent Internet users, the margin was more than ten-to-one (67% to 6%). http://www.excelgov.org/egovpoll/index.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT, SPEED:  In New Jersey, businesses can now apply and receive general air pollution permits online through the Department of Environmental Protection web site in a matter of minutes (compared to four to six week). http://www.civic.com/civic/articles/2000/0417/web-dep-04-21-00.asp - Federal Computer Week, Environmental Permits Going Online in New Jersey, 4/21/00
• E-GOVERNMENT, UK COURTS: The British Government announced this week that it has set aside a budget of GBP43 million ($63.5 million) to integrate the Internet into the country’s court system. http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356360&rel=true
• EGOVERNMENT, UK: The commercial market for providing and implementing egovernment services in the UK alone will amount to GBP730 million (USD1 billion) by 2005, according to Forrester. http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356419&rel=true
• E-GOVERNMENT, VEHICLE REGISTRATION: Arizona, the first state to permit vehicle registration renewals online, calculates the cost of electronic registration renewals at $1.60 compared to $7 for the paper process.
• E-GOVERNMENT:  In India, multimedia intranet kiosks have been set up to provide half a million rural villagers with immediate access to government services and information including accurate market prices for their produce, enabling farmers to cut out the middlemen and sell their produce for the highest price on the wholesale market. http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/casestudies/casestudies.asp
• E-GOVERNMENT:  The State of Colorado Bid Information and Distribution System (BIDS) (www.gssa.state.co.us) allows any government department, university, or hospital within the state to post requests for goods and services. A powerful BIDS feature allows users to communicate, collaborate, and create joint ventures--an innovation that previously wasn't practical. http://www.forbes.com/asap/00/0529/068b.htm
• E-GOVERNMENT:  Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles www.dmv.state.va.us - Every day, more than 450 Virginia residents log on and renew their drivers' licenses. Another 150 use the Web site to change their address or purchase a license plate. With about 13% of the state's drivers now conducting business with the state online, workers at Virginia's DMV have more time for the rest of their customers
• E-GOVERNMENT: 51% of municipal governments employ a Webmaster or Web administrator. (Int'l City/County Mgmt Assn & Public Technology, Inc., Feb. 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: 53% of municipal governments purchase products online. (Int'l City/County Mgmt Assn & Public Technology, Inc., Feb. 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: 60% of municipal governments are considering developing a e-government master plan. (Int'l City/County Mgmt Assn & Public Technology, Inc., Feb. 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: 84% of municipal governments have a Web site. (Int'l City/County Mgmt Assn & Public Technology, Inc., Feb. 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has revealed that 35.4 million Americans filed their federal income tax returns over the Internet in 2000. http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905356539&rel=true
• E-GOVERNMENT: biggest obstacle to e-government is lack of IT staff. (Int'l City/County Mgmt Assn & Public Technology, Inc., Feb. 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: Bill Halter, SSA deputy commissioner, reports that the savings observed when transactions are shifted from phone-based communication to online means are dramatic. “Right now, each transaction we handle on the phone costs between $6 and $10,” Halter says. Studies sited by CommerceNet show that similar Internet transactions cost as little as 4 cents. http://www.federaltimes.com/issues/ssaspeed.html
• E-GOVERNMENT: German federal government announced plans to have all Internet-capable services from 350 federal agencies online by 2005. (F.A.Z., Feb. 2001).  (Currently only 2,500 of Germany's 14,000 cities and municipalities have a homepage. Of these, 80% provide little more than office hours and lists of services, and just one in every five web sites allows users to download forms or make appointments with city workers.)
• E-GOVERNMENT: Municipal Court in Macon, GA letting residents pay traffic and housing violations via the Internet, tying into the city’s Police Department and Economic Development Agency and let the court send no-signature-required documents to the state electronically.  (http://www.gcn.com/state/vol6_no3/states-50/644-1.html- The 50 States, March 2000, Government Computer News, State and Local.)
• E-GOVERNMENT: OhioWorks.com provides local and regional job market information to Ohio workers, allowing visitors to create, post and search resumes, determine hiring and wage trends, post jobs, participate in welfare reform services and research child-care, training, and transportation -- free of charge to all users. (www.ohioworks.com, 2001).
• E-GOVERNMENT: Over 1/3^rd of online French government services are interactive while just 8.3% of online U.S. governmental services are interactive.  (Anderson Consulting, 2000).
• E-GOVERNMENT: The Internet, along with a new census methodology, had enabled the Singapore government to obtain better census results. (Singapore Ministry of Trade & Industry, Feb. 2001).
  

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PLEASE BE ADVISED:

Research organizations differ on many measurements and predictions. Cisco Systems cannot verify the accuracy of all of the findings. We include all credible information to offer a glimpse into the range of estimates and predictions.

Abbreviations / acronyms used herein are defined and explained more fully in the issue briefs available at Cisco’s public policy page. Most common acronyms include DSL (digital subscriber line service, which is high speed Internet access over telephone lines); WAN (wide area network connections link different organizations such as schools across a region); LAN (local area network connections link computers within an organization)