Maryland measures its e-gov readiness

Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend yesterday announced results of a survey that shows that 64 percent of the state’s households and 89 percent of its businesses have computers, and 42 percent of the businesses conduct transactions online. The eReadiness Maryland study found that most use dial-up Internet connections, whose speed drops from 52.6 Kbps down to 23.2 Kbps in some areas because of aging copper telephone wiring. Thirty-two percent of the companies surveyed had T1 or faster lines, and 11 percent had digital subscriber lines. DSL and cable modem availability were scattered, with some areas having neither. The study found “a huge concentration of network connectivity in the Washington area” and less in Baltimore and elsewhere.The eReadiness survey covered 1,422 Maryland households and 1,126 businesses. The Maryland Technology Development Corp. and the Ohio Supercomputer Center measured the speed of dial-up service statewide by attaching notebook PCs to telephone lines at multiple locations 24 hours per day. The notebooks were programmed to download various sizes of files via FTP, Hypertext Transfer Protocol and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration gave the eReadiness study $100,000 in federal funding, matched by state and nonstate sources. Visit for more results.