Publication: Russia’s Ambitious Broadband Goal: Is the Progress Sustainable?
Date
2016-03
ISSN
Published
2016-03
Author(s)
Abstract
In 2012, the Russian Federation
announced one of the world’s more ambitious broadband
Internet development goals: providing 80 percent of Russian
households with ultrafast connection speeds - at least 100
megabits per second (Mbps) by 2018.1 That goal exceeds the
current targets in Germany and the European Union, and it is
about equivalent to those currently being pursued by
countries with ambitious strategic broadband connectivity
goals, including Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. As
part of the effort to reach its 2018 target, the Russian
government recently tasked Rostelecom - a largely
state-owned enterprise and the dominant firm in Russia’s
broadband market - with the responsibility of connecting 4
million people (about 2.8 percent of all households) in
small, widely scattered settlements throughout Russia by
installing 200,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable providing
speeds of at least 10 Mbps. The assignment is both a great
opportunity and a huge challenge for Rostelecom and for the
entire Russian broadband sector. What can Russia do to
ensure Rostelecom’s successful completion of its specific
task as well as the success of the broader 2018 target?
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Gelvanovska, Natalija; Rossotto, Carlo Maria; Gunzburger, Michael Lee. 2016. Russia’s Ambitious Broadband Goal: Is the Progress Sustainable?. Connections;2016(4). © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25012 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”