To date, the total volume of services in the communication market of the Republic of Kazakhstan has increased by 12.8% compared to last year. The direction of communication is actively developing.

Over the three months of this year, the largest share in the total volume of services fell on the Internet communications services — 36.3%. Compared with the corresponding period last year, growth was 13.5%. The main reasons for the growth in March are the introduction of the state of emergency in the country, as well as the quarantine regime in many regions of the country. The role of the Internet during the state of emergency has grown significantly.

According to Tuyakov, at present, cities and a part of rural settlements with a large number of residents receive broadband Internet access services using various technologies. Residents of villages with a small number are experiencing problems with the quality of the Internet connection. The country has 6,560 settlements, of which 118 cities and 6,443 villages.

Also today, all regional and district centers are provided with a fiber optic communication line. More than 50% of the population are connected to fiber optic infrastructure.

“In order to equalize the social opportunities of the regions and ensure coverage of high-speed Internet via FOCL from district to village, we have been implementing a PPP project since 2018. Within the framework of this project, we do not finance the construction of fiber optic cable, but buy ready-made services and thus we are currently moving away from the traditional construction of ICT infrastructure. Today, 50% of villages are already located, and this is 607 rural settlements connected to fiber optic links. The remaining 643 will be covered by FOCL by the end of 2020,” Tuyakov said.