Dauren Abayev comments on project bringing high-speed Internet to rural areas

ASTANA. KAZINFORM The Minister of Information and Communications of Kazakhstan, Dauren Abayev, spoke about the work that is being carried out to provide villages across the country with high-speed Internet access, Kazinform correspondent reports.

Speaking at the Government Session today, Minister Abayev said that fiber-optic communication lines will be laid to almost 1,700 rural settlements, providing high-speed Internet access to over 2 million people. Dauren Abayev added that the Ministry plans to implement the project in 2018-2020.

The project will be implemented under the public-private partnership with guaranteed consumption of communication services by state bodies for 13 years.

It was stressed that as a result of the project implementation, nearly 2,000 schools and 1,200 healthcare institutions and local government bodies will have Internet access at up to 20 Mbs.

As of today, according to the Ministry's data, all 122 cities and towns in Kazakhstan, as well as about 1,200 rural settlements have high-speed Internet access via fiber-optic lines. 72.8% of the country population have access to the worldwide web.