Information and communication technology infrastructure improving in Belarus

Belarus has improved the main indicators that characterize the communication infrastructure and information and communication technologies, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian telecommunication operator Beltelecom as the press service referred to data of the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications for 2013.

In particular, a massive increase in the number of broadband Internet access subscribers has advanced Belarus to the first position among the Customs Union states in the number of broadband Internet access subscribers per 100 capita. In Belarus the figure stands at 29.41 per 100 residents, the figure is 16.53 in Russia and 11.5 in Kazakhstan. The ratio of households that use broadband Internet access (wired and wireless) in the total number of households amounted to 83.7 per 100 in 2013 (56.5 in Russia and 51.6 in Kazakhstan).

Belarus is the traditional leader in the ratio of households that use conventional phones and in the density of primary phones per 100 residents. While the number of wired phone communication subscribers has been falling for a long time in most countries, in Belarus the number of wired phone communication subscribers increases every year, stressed Beltelecom.

The density of wired phone lines (the number of primary phones without payphones) was about 47 per 100 residents in Belarus, 28.1 in Russia, and 25.8 in Kazakhstan.

The Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications was established by the heads of telecommunication administrations of the CIS states in Moscow in December 1991. The organization is meant to enable cooperation in the area of electric and postal communication on a voluntary basis, principles of mutual respect and sovereignty. Beltelecom has been a member of the Council of Telecommunication Operators of the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications since its inception.

The first session of the working group on switching member states of the Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications to the sixth-generation Internet protocol (IPv6) under the Council of Telecommunication Operators took place at Beltelecom premises on 30 September.

Specialists explained that the new Internet protocol is vital for the World Wide Web because the number of free addresses available via the fourth-generation Internet protocol (IPv4) has been virtually exhausted. The number of devices that connect to the Internet rises every day causing IP address shortages. BelTA has been told that IPv6 has been developed to fix a number of problems that plague its predecessor. The limited number of unique addresses is the key problem. IPv4 offers 4.3 billion unique global addresses while IPv6 offers 3.4x1038 unique global addresses.