By Vestnik Kavkaza
“Tactically the revolution’s success depends on quick capturing communications (the post, telegraph, train stations),” the founder of the first socialist state in the world Vladimir Lenin thought.
“… Internet, mobile providers, satellite-at-home television,” contemporary jokers add.
The chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Connection, Alexei Mitrofanov, spoke about new tendencies in the spheres. He said the post and Rostelekom will be reformed seriously, legislation in the Internet sphere will appear.
“The law on the post is fundamental and concerns a huge sphere, the biggest household staff in the country – 400 thousand employees. A lot of problems were accumulated in the sphere, and a lot of discussions are being held on reforming the branch. It is a social issue; and all fractions of the State Duma are interested in it. Any ideas on dividing into a commercial part and a state part are not supported in Duma. Also changes in the administration of the post are not supported ahead of the reform, a change for a mega-merchant. A reform which will make the state pay, while the profitable part of the business will get into some third hands cannot be understood.
It is about the post which is in every village – almost no other structure, including Sberbank, reaches evry village. The post is the only structure which does. It is politically important because these are voters. If the post disappears in some residential area, it means the authoritioes have left. The population considers the post to be an element of a state power,” Mitrofanov thinks.
“Rostelekom is the major national operator in the sphere of telecommunications, which has a huge potential. A change of its administration is expected. We expect a concept of development of this sphere from new leaders, the new board of directors. Rostelekom is accumulating power in cellar service by purchasing a series of important assets – it can be a national champion in the sphere of communications. Old Rostelekom was sitting on old Soviet assets, old Soviet cables. Today it has a chance to promote. I believe Rostelekom will use technologies of some foreign companies,” Mitrofanov said.
Speaking about the internal roaming in Russia, he noted that “the first stage of the internal roaming will be “home tariffs.” You come to a region with your Moscow or other number, for example, and local tariffs of your hope provider begin to operate there. Of course cellar companies lose revenues, but they are not significant. We tell them: “We are working in a perspective with you. Nobody has touched you for 15 years. In this sphere you have been developing under the most favorable conditions. Now you are serious, strong and have investment capacities. Let’s implement a form of competition.” They do realize that this position is right.”
As for the international roaming, according to Mitrofanov, “a Soviet person was psychologically taught that to call abroad is expensive. As long as this scheme exists, cellar companies understand that it won’t case indignation. Since you were children, you know that when you call to America, you should pay a lot. But local calls are thought to cost nothing. There is a problem inside the country. Optic fiber has not reached all territories in our country. In Norilsk they call through a satellite still. Cellar companies are serious players, but I estimate their position as super-comfortable. I think they should shift from super-comfort to comfort. But we don’t want them to find themselves in the situation of discomfort.”
