Two investment proposals filed with the Russian government by national telecom operator Rostelecom have received support from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russian daily Vedomosti reported. The proposals aim to modernize Rostelecom’s networks in Russia’s Central Federal District by 2013 in order to provide all the District’s 7 million households with landline and wireless Internet, telecom and digital TV services at speeds up to 100 Mb/s.
Depending on the region, Rostelecom will use either VDSL-2 (Very-high data rate Digital Subscriber Line, a data transmission technology based on the conventional copper phone line infrastructure), Ethernet, GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network), or the CDMA-450 infrastructure of its subsidiary Sky Link to provide its new services. Government support of the plan means, particularly, that the government could guarantee the repayment of funds Rostelecom will borrow.
To implement its modernization initiative, Rostelecom plans to double the length of its backbone optical network in the Central Federal District. With these anticipated investments, Rostelecom expects to double its revenues in the District by 2015, up from 40.6 billion rubles or $1.44 billion in 2010.
From 2011-2015, Rostelecom plans to invest 20% of its revenues in improving Russia’s telecom infrastructure, according to Vedomosti. Plans call for 30% of all the company’s investment spending to go to the development of broadband Internet access. Analysts at the Russian investment firm Troika Dialog expect the aggregated revenue of Rostelecom for 2011-2015 will total $53.58 billion.
Broadband penetration reached just 30% of Russian households by the end of 2010, with the total number of broadband accounts reaching 15.4 million, reported AC&M, a Russian management consulting and research agency specializing in telecommunications and media. Broadband penetration rates in Moscow, St.Petersburg, and other major cities are above 70%.
