Web site Security.uz reported with references to UzA news agency that the number of Internet users in Uzbekistan in the first quarter of the year amounted to 1.08 million. The figure was revealed at the meeting of the Cabinet structures for information systems and telecommunications.

According to Security.uz, Internet users numbered only 855,000 when the year began. It follows that the army of Internet users grows by approximately 75,000 people every month.

Unfortunately, no information is available from Uzbek web-providers or alternative sources making their own estimates of proliferation of Internet in Uzbekistan. What criteria the Cabinet used in its calculations is anybody's guess. Was it a rough estimate that counted in everyone who uses information from Internet even obtained through relatives and acquaintances? Was it the number of personal computers that may establish a link with Internet?

UzA news agency reports that 1.3 millions use cell phones in Uzbekistan - approximately as many as Internet users, according to official data. Specialists say in the meantime that this ratio is absolutely atypical for CIS countries.

"This ratio is one to six even in Russia, the country that is not exactly backward but not particularly advanced where proliferation of Internet is concerned. I mean the ratio of web-users (22 millions) to owners of cell phones (128 millions)," said Dmitry Malinin, an expert in the sphere of Internet technologies and one of the founding fathers of Uznet. "These figures are poppycock even by the boldest estimates. They look like wishful thinking on state officials' part. Sure, the armies of Internet users and owners of cell phones do grow, but the figures reported here will be true in 2008 with luck."