Топик: Telecommunications
In the last days of 2000 the government approved "in principle" of a draft concept for developing the market of telecommunications services, extending till the year 2010. What are the likely implications of that decision?
Under the approved project further efforts in the telecommunications market must be geared to meet the growing demand for communications services. According to the Ministry of Communications, 54,000 communities in Russia have not a single telephone. Communications networks development has been and still is the job of traditional operators. Bills paid by retail subscribers cover a mere 77 percent of local telephone communications costs.
According to the most conservative estimates, the development of the national telephone infrastructure will require an investment of $33 billion over a period of ten years. The number of ordinary telephones will grow from 31.2 million in 2000 to 47.7 million in 2010, and of mobile telephones, from 2.9 million to 22.2 million. The army of Internet users by 2010 will go up from 2.5 million to 26.1 million.
For communications operators to be effective control will be established of the fair access of one operator to the other operator's network. No operator will be allowed to refuse access to its infrastructure to another operator. And tariffs for all market participants should be the same.
Having examined the concept the Ministry of Communication, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Anti-Monopoly Policies Ministry ordered finalizing the document within a two-month deadline and present it in one package with a plan for implementation measures to the Cabinet of Ministers. In the meantime, the Russian communications market is booming. Investments in 2000 exceeded by far those witnessed by pre-crisis 1997. National industrial operators are in the growth phase.
For the past few years the telecommunications divisions of several giants (such as the Ministry of Railways, Gazprom and others companies) have stormed the domestic market, but none has gained full access to this day. The possibility remains, though, that these companies next year may gain the status of a full-fledged operator. However, before they can count on the right to provide communications services in the domestic market, the operators of corporate telecommunications networks must settle their debts to the government, Communications Minister Leonid Reiman told Vek. He believes that these operators may settle their liabilities by transferring part of their shares to the State Property Ministry.
The Communications Ministry has conducted negotiations with the Defense Ministry on using certain frequencies for civilian purposes. Reiman said four percent of the radio frequencies were used by civil services, 20 percent, jointly by military and civil services, and the others were exempt from conversion. The Communications Ministry does not dismiss the possibility of operators' financial participation in the conversion of frequency ranges to civilian uses altogether. The issue of licenses to use vacant frequencies through contests may prove a means to raise funds for the mobile communication sector. The government has approved of issuing contested licenses for frequency ranges above 1800 MHz, and for third generation cellular systems.
Of the main methods the government uses to control the telecommunications market, alongside technological policies and perfection of service provision principles, one should point to the control of tariffs, minimization of cross subsidies, optimization of tariffs structure by consumer and regional sectors, transition as of 2002 to limit pricing-based tariffs, and the introduction of a system of universal services. The effective control and operation of the industry should provide support for domestic producers and safeguard national interests during the restructuring of companies, including Svyazinvest.
Svyazinvest is in the process of enlargement and reorganization. Instead of the 89 regional operators it is creating a new structure uniting seven to fifteen communications operators. This measure is expected to make the company easier to control and increase its shareholder value. The General Director of OAO Nizhegorodsvyazinform Vladimir Lyulin and Managing Director of the investment bank Group Gamma Timur Khusainov in December signed a contract on the provision of information and consulting services within the framework of the unification of eleven regional communications operators in the Volga river area.
Nizhegorodsyavinform will be the base company in the Volga area, taking over ten other regional communications operators - OAO Kirovelektrosvyaz, OAO Martelkom of the Republic of Mari El,
OAO Svyazinform of the Republic of Mordovia, OAO Elektrosvyaz of the Orenburg Region, OAO Svyazinform of the Penza Region, OAO Svyazinform of the Samara Region, Saratovelektrosvyaz, Telecommunications Networks of the Udmurt Republic, Elektrosvyaz of the Ulyanovsk Region, and Svyazinform of the Chuvash Republic. The unification process is due to be completed by the beginning of 2003.
The number of trunk communication lines over the past two years grew noticeably. Rostelecom and Transtelecom have been discussing the possibilities of Asia-Europe traffic. Companies in the West have turned an attentive ear to this news. Some are drawing plans for doing business in Russia. The main conclusion is that the economy's drift from material production to information technologies implies the growing role of telecommunications . Those companies which fail to reorganize their policies and development priorities in time, will fail in market competition. A shift of the emphasis from the transmission of voice to the transmission of data is the mainstream trend in the telecommunications business.
Market economy development will give Russia convenient and high quality telecommunications roads. However, only those companies that have opted for new development models will make a rapid headway.
FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT
Future is speed and power. New technologies in electronics continue to develop. Computers become more compact, fast and inexpensive. The smaller chips' size the closer it placed one another and electric signal goes much faster. Technology exert revolutionary influence on society only when it is universal. Real revolution in manufacture, accumulation, treatment of matter begins when first universal metal-working machines appeared and telecommunication systems were created. In ancient machines energy source was combined with machine itself, but in process of development, division of manufacture, transmission and consumption of energy took place.
Revolutionary modifications in use of energy connected with appearance of universal electric machines and power grids. Social changes to informational society take in all countries.
On base of analogy between matter, energy and information we can have ideas about future. Earlier, for example, number of manufactured metal played the strategic role and was the description of development. Now we save metal, energy and we think about energy saving technologies.
It is very difficult to predict many steps of informatization. Telecommunications changes world very much.
CONCLUSION
In each device developed by human, collection and processing of information take place. Even simple soda water apparatus when it receives money, this apparatus collect and analyze information about coin and then either return the coin or give glass of soda water. In that way telecommunications may change us and world in future.
Nobody knows what our future will be like. Some people say that big spacecrafts will be built and that people will visit distant planets and make their settlements there. Some people say that technology will be developed to such an extent that computers will control the world. Others think that there will be world disasters floods, droughts and earthquakes alike - and that they will destroy the human race. Christians believe that the end of the world is near and that the God will come to part the good people from the bad ones. There are people who believe that pollution will cause the decline and fall of the mankind and there are those who predict that a gigantic shooting star will crash into the Earth at the turn of the century. Some people claim that alliens are planning to attack and turn us into their slaves.
So, is there, after all, a slight chance that people will finally come to their senses and that there will be at least no starvation and wars?
I think that bright future is in front of us. Just take a quick glance through history and you will realize it too: in ancient times people killed each other in order to have meat for dinner, later in order to satisfy their own vanity and today without any reason at all. As you can notice, we are developing very fast! Neighbors are killing each other out of boredom; mothers are killing their newborn babies out of some little sick reasons. Isn’t it obvious that we are considerably improving species which is getting wiser every day?
If we try to make this world better we shall succeed. But, are we ready to do it now? Are we really environment friendly while not recycling but just piling rubbish in the middle of once green meadows, while shooting bears and foxes just because of their fur? Are we really worried about thousands of hungry people while we are throwing away fresh food in garbage bins? Do we really care about all those thirsty children while we are splashing about in swimming pools? Are we really concerned about dangerously polluted air our descendants will have to inhale while we are driving happily our flashy cars? Can we even try to imagine the ugliness of the desert we are going to leave to our grandchildren?
It could be estimated that an average person spends a minute a year thinking about the future of our planet and I do not know if I should compliment this or not. Is it an achievement after all?
I express my gratitude for devoting people’s lives to saving our future world by making other people aware that the appalling problems of poverty and arms build-up should be dealt with soon and that, among many other things, our seas and forests deserve more protection than they get. The only way we can show the Earth our respect is to change our attitude and behavior before it is too late. So let’s do it now.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. BOGATSKIY I.S., DYUKANOVA N.M. “BUSINESSCOURSE OF ENGLISH”, KIEV “LOGOS”, 2003
2. TIMOSHINA A.A., MIKSHA L.S. “ENGLISH OF MODERN ECONOMICS” MOSCOW “ANT”, 2002
3. “AGE” №51, 2000
4. A.JEJELAVA, Z. KUKAVA “CURRENT STAGE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE GEORGIAN BANKING SYSTEM TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFROSTRUCTURE’, TBILISI