Belarus has been steadily reducing the digital gap between it and the developed countries recently. Every year, the number of users of broadband Internet is growing. 3G communication has been launched and modern technologies make it possible to ‘speed up’ mobile Internet to 28 Mb per second. Moreover, the present possibilities of digital and interactive TV are obvious…In recent years, the country has made a great breakthrough on the level of national IT branch development. Russian Yandex has recently come to the Belarusian market. It believes that the number of domestic users (in percentage ratio) equals global figures. The Head of the largest search system on the post-Soviet territory, Andrey Volozh, says that about 37 percent of Belarusians are already ‘on the Internet’; importantly, these are not sporadic but active users. The Communications and Informatisation Minister, Nikolai Pantelei, is convinced that, by late 2010, at least 1.8m subscribers to bread-band access will be registered in Belarus. In turn, Giprosvyaz JSC believes that, by 2015, the figure for the country will exceed 3 million.
Mobile Internet users are also worth mentioning. Analysts say that, by late 2015, about 50 percent of handset users will access Internet via their phones. At present, the level of mobile telecommunication penetration in Belarus is high; according to the statistics, 105 handsets for every 100 citizens. Meanwhile, tough competition between the existing GSM-operators ensures regular launches of new tariff plans and reduction in their cost.
Meanwhile, there are no grounds to say that mobile Internet is less popular now. The Head of Mobile TeleSystems, Vladimir Karpovich, says that about 1.5m MTC subscribers use wireless Internet access. He adds that Belarus is now on the edge of the technological revolution which is likely to significantly speed up the attraction of new members to the ‘digital society’. The talk here is not only about third-generation communication (3G) — which the company is actively developing now — but its further evolutionary stages. Operators are already thinking over the prospects of receiving a frequency range to launch fourth-generation communication — LTE. The officials from the Communications and Informatisation Ministry are convinced that Belarus’ lagging behind the West in its technological development acts as an advantage for our country. Operators have possibilities to create broad-band mobile networks and launch new 3G communication equipment which will enable them to shift to 4G via a mere change of software.
The Communications and Informatisation Ministry declared that, by 2015, the country is due to finish work on the creation and development of basic components of the information-communication infrastructure — to develop the state system of telecommunication services. “This will include the all-state information system (integrating resources with the aim of providing electronic services); the single protected medium for information interrelation; the state system of public key management; the system of identification of individuals and companies; and the payment gateway integrated with a single information space (to ensure payment transactions),” says Mr. Pantelei. According to the Communications and Informatisation Ministry’s calculations, each family should have at least one computer with Internet access to ensure efficient access to e-government services.
By Grigory Anikeev
