INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

          This is an overview of the project topic. It gives the history of the circumstances surrounding the topic

          The internet has mad changes in almost all aspect of our lives as it plays important role in most of what we discuss today about access to distribution and retrieval of information. According to Cachage “Internet explorer” (2001) he declared that Internet explorers have high expectation of internet services which range from a simple desire to find something interesting (for no particular reason) to searching for useful information on a specific issue as a result of the great diversity and volume of information contained in he internet. Chen et al (1998) stated that internet can enable the user to have access to information on diverse and specific areas that can meet his needs.

          According to Paul (2002) he said that the internet which began in the 1960’s as a project of a few researcher has grown to be a commercial success with billions of dollars of annual decades into a mass developed within three decades into a mass medium that influences most or all domains of life from education to recreation, from business to medicine and from academic to politics. He notes further that today’s mega-trend and vision of the global village and globalization are based on and influenced by this technology. The influence of the internet allows all aspect of life. In developing as well as developed countries.

          Statistics show that the use of the internet has grown in the most urban area in Africa relatively rapidly in much the same way as the adoption of the mobile phone which followed shortly after. Jensen (1996) observed that over half of African countries have despite their poor telecommunications infrastructure developed some form o low-cost dial up store end e-mail service with a gateway to the internet – 33 of the 54 nations on continent as at 1996, that of these 20 countries have live internet cities. E listed these as Algeria, Angola, central African Republic, Benin, Cote d’ ivory, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Tanzania, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique and of course South Africa, which is among the top 20 countries on the internet when ranked by number of the internet nodes. He noted further that an additional eight countries had well advanced plans for establishing an internet node, namely Burkinafso, Botswana, Gabon, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, Sierra Leone, as can be seen from the foregoing, Nigeria of which Delta state is part had no live internet public access services in her cities at that time

          At present every capital city and major towns in Nigeria have internet public access services. As indicated by 2002 status report on the Africa internet (1) as of mid-2002 the internet of dial-up internet subscribers was close to 1.7m in Africa, 20 percent up from the previous year mainly bolstered by growth in a few of the larger countries such as Egypt, South Africa, Morocco and Nigeria, that charred public access and the use of corporate networks is continuing to grow at greater rates than he number of dial-up users. The report further notes that there are now many thousands of cyber-café in the major cities of Nigeria run by small entrepreneur who are allowed by the regulator of provide VOIP services as part of the cyber-café license, which costs about $500 a year. These cyber-cafes are growing in number at the passing of each day.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS