Expert opinion: Russia’s telecom industry

On Nov. 30, The Moscow News and Moskovskiye Novosti, in cooperation with Media Business Solutions and our official partner, the Pepeliaev Group, hosted a Global Telecom Forum. On Dec. 18, we will be publishing a broader report on the conference. 

Meanwhile, we asked participants for their impressions of the current situation in the industry.

1. Do you see government investment as benefiting the development of the telecommunications industry in Russia?

2. What prospects do you think foreign investors have on the Russian market?

3. What obstacles do you see for Russian telecoms, physical or legal? Is the infrastructure sufficient to sustain a nationwide network?

 «In my opinion, state investment is necessary for development of the telecommunications industry in Russia. Everyone should have the possibility to use modern communications services, have access to the Internet, etc. However, Russia is a very big country, and today there still exists the problem of remote territories. In these areas, the population density is very low, and it is unprofitable for operators to build their networks because it requires large investment and the return, if any, is certainly low. Meanwhile, this does not mean that the population of these areas should be deprived of access to modern communications. Here the help of the state and state investments is important.

The state should demonstrate support to operators in network creation in such regions. The state also is undertaking an active policy to carry services over to electronic formats. The adoption of e-government is also a task of the state, which should be paid for out of the budget»