Russia’s largest operator of satellite television, Tricolor TV, announced its commercial launch of asymmetrical satellite Internet access, Vedomosti reported.
The service has been available in test mode since February 2010, and about 12,000 subscribers have joined since that time. According to Sergey Stavropoltsev, commercial director of Tricolor TV, the company intends to attract 30,000 subscribers by the end of the year, while the prospective audience numbers approximately 500,000.
Tricolor TV is offering several monthly service plans for incoming Internet traffic, which vary in price depending on connection speed. Speeds range from 128 kbps to 1024 kbps and cost from 99 to 999 rubles, respectively. The price for upstream data, which is transmitted via mobile operators MegaFon and MTS, is charged separately.
A similar satellite Internet service is provided by satellite operator DiSat, a trademark of Raduga Internet, in partnership with MTS, VimpelCom, and SkyLink. Raduga Internet’s commercial director, Ivan Cheglakov, estimated that at the end of 2010, 145,000 of the 280,000 people using satellite Internet in Russia subscribed to Raduga Internet’s service.
The National Satellite Company has been providing satellite television services under the Tricolor TV brand since 2005. In 2009, the company signed a strategic partnership agreement with Gazprom Media, a major holding comprising television, radio, print media, film production, advertising, movie theater and Internet assets. The agreement paved the way for Gazprom Media’s acquisition of the National Satellite Company, which however remains to be completed.
Expert commentary
Special to EWDN from Vladislav Shirobokov, broadcast media expert
Tricolor TV, by its own estimate, serves 7.5 million subscribers of satellite television, commanding a market share of more than 82% in early 2011, according to J’son & Partners Consulting. Despite such a significant portion of sales, the company’s most important task for the near future is to increase revenues.
Tricolor TV broadcasts eight national television channels free of charge, and the vast majority of subscribers purchase a package of 52 channels for an annual fee of 600 rubles (less than $22). Perhaps the new Internet services will increase the revenues.
According to analyst Elena Krylova of iKS-Consulting, the audience is concentrated in cities with populations under 100,000 and in villages in which the penetration of fixed broadband access services is 10% against an average of 34% for the whole territory of Russia.
• Vladislav Shirobokov, 28, is a telecom and broadcasting industry professional with 8 years of experience in CIS countries. Currently he works as a sales manager covering Eastern Europe and Russia at GlobeCast, the leading global provider of content management and worldwide transmission services for professional broadcast delivery. Over the past two years, he has supported the launch of satellite and cable distribution for more than twenty TV channels in these regions. Mr Shirobokov is a graduate of the faculty of International Relations at St Petersburg State University.
