IT and authority: Optical fiber communication line Chelyabinsk-Khabarovsk wins a high appraisal of President of Russia

The Working meeting of the Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Igor Shchegolev with the President of Russia Dmitry A. Medvedev took place on April, 26. High on the agenda were issues regarding the introduction of Cyrillic domain “.RF”, and a work on laying of the new optical fiber communication line Chelyabinsk-Khabarovsk, which would enable to boost data transmission speed and decrease Internet price for Internet users of the Far East.

Igor Shchegolev announced that ICANN had officially approved a request of Russia for introduction of the Cyrillic domain “.RF”. Thus, Russia has become the first country to launch a top-level domain using its official language. Domains’ reservation in “.RF” has already kicked off. An opportunity for common users to open a website with its name in Cyrillic alphabet is supposed to appear in autumn.

The Minister highlighted holding of the annual forum “RIF+KIB”, which was called to turn spotlight on latest tendencies of Runet development. “Out of many high-tech industries Internet remains the one, which is prospering. There was even 8% rise in advertising sector, - Igor Shchegolev remarked. – These are results of the year 2009, the year of world crisis, especially taking into account that in general the Mass Media market was down over 30%. What is more, absolute figures are also impressive: Internet advertisement reached 19 billion rubles, whereas Internet trade totaled 150 billion rubles”.

Dmitry A. Medvedev proved: “The mere sector, which thrived the last year, was, probably, high-tech industry and Internet companies, social network services appeared to be absolutely not vulnerable to the crisis. Though, people’s mood worldwide seemed more complicated, capitalization of major networks increased”.

Igor Shchegolev introduced figures of market participants, according to which 43 million Russians have been acquainted with Internet, and a monthly number of social networks’ users was estimated to reach 22–24 million people. Increase in the number of Internet users in Russia is especially obvious in regions – mainly in Volga region and Ural. The Head of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media reported that a telecommunications holding company “Svyazinvest” was preparing a number of solutions regarding implementation of social price rate, which was to provide an access to information services, which didn’t require high speeds.

A new 10,000 km long optical fiber communication line Chelyabinsk-Khabarovsk will help to improve Internet access to people of remote regions. It is announced to be launched this week. The communication line is called to decrease Internet traffic cost for people of Far East.

“Undoubtedly these are new opportunities for industrial users, because it is possible to download large amounts of data, and this will improve our positions in transiting Internet traffic from the Far-Eastern countries”, - the Minister stressed.

A work on laying of the optical fiber communication line won high appraisal of Dmitry A. Medvedev. “It is still the most important means of communication in our country, especially considering its large territory. Therefore this should be encouraged in every possible way”, - the President of Russia stressed.