Smart Nation Moving towards electronic communication
To improve our national efficiency, we need to move towards electronic communication.

We have to use email and SMS to replace physical letters that need to be posted.

A certain proportion of our population is not able to use electronic communication. This fact should not impede the rest of the population moving making this change.

I suggest a two prong approach.

We should adopt electronic communication for those who prefer to use this new approach. For those who are not ready, we can continue to use physical letters.

I expect that more than half of the population will opt for electronic communication. This will reduce the cost of our communication by more than 50%. 

As time goes by, more will move towards electronic communication. It may take 5, 10 or 15 years for the change to be completed. 

There is a fear that e-mail is not secure. and can be viewed by hackers from third party servers.

This fear is overblown. It does not apply to ordinary communication that do not have any privacy or financial value. Few communication are sensitive and need to be protected.

Let the recipient decide on the types of communication that they prefer to receive through a secure channel, such as SMS to a mobile device.

The authority can also provide a platform for people to receive electronic communication through a server that does not use the public email servers. This platform can be used for official communication by government agencies. They can be extended to commercial agencies by paying a small fee. This fee is a small fraction of the cost of postage and printing of physical letters.

To improve national efficiency and reduce the cost of communication, we need to move towards electronic communication. I have suggested the approach on how this can be achieved.

Tan Kin Lian

Please vote - do you agree with my suggestion?

Add Comment

---