An Assessment Of Local Area Networks In Zambia's Public Organizations

The application and impact of Local Area Network (LAN) in Zambia's public organizations contents was investigated. It included assessment of the current Zambia networking technology status, networking Investment potential and the readiness of Zambian public organizations to utilize networking technology.Data collection was done through random sampling of nineteen public organizations based in the capital city. A qualitative research approach of gathering data was used in a nonnumeric form. In-depth interviews were conducted through various common communication Media together with structured and focused questionnaires. Desk research was used to obtain background information on country's economy and human resources.Qualitative data analysis approach was used to analyze data. The research strongly suggests that most Zambia's public organizations lag behind in Local Area Network (LAN) and that there is significant lack of trained personnel in networking technology. Most public organizations (89.5%) were not internally networked but had access to computers, an average of one computer for every 10 (10%) workers. 100% of the organizations were positive in the usefulness of internal networking and were willing to network their operations. Fully Networked Public organizations were 23.5% and showed that internally networked operations can easily exchange valuable information and share expensive resources. 53% of the public organizations had internet access in the director's office and that e-mail was not in common use.Most Public Organizations (100%) felt that the government should allocate more budget money towards networking programs, training more staff in networking and conduct massive campaigns to public organizations on the benefits that networking bring to an organization. The limitation of the research showed that there was need to extend the assessment to other urban/rural areas in order to carry out a meaningful research.This research recommends that Local Area Network in Zambia's public organizations should be encouraged and maintained, so as to bring enhanced organizational productivity which in turn could serve as a spring board for national economic development as it has been proved in developed countries.