The Internet can allow both public and private organizations to increase the speed and efficiency of transactions. For example, public agencies can provide online services to the regulated community without time and geographic constraints. Two-thirds of Texans recently surveyed by the University of Texas' Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute use computers, and 60 percent use the Internet. More than four-fifths of them think the Internet offers significant potential to make government services more readily available. Most respondents prefer that the costs of e-government be raised either through advertising or user fees.
Several states are far ahead of Texas in allowing their citizens to obtain or renew licenses online.
Georgia , for instance, allows accountants and real estate professionals to renew licenses online at a 25 percent discount. In 1998, Arizona contracted with a private vendor to develop an online motor vehicle registration system. Maryland slashed the time needed to issue licenses from two weeks to about 10 minutes. As of April 2000, more than 90 percent of Maryland's real estate appraisers had renewed their licenses online, as did 83 percent of the state's certified public accountants. Fifteen of the remaining 16 occupations had online renewal rates of more than 50 percent, and 38 percent of the remaining occupation, barbers, renewed online.