PM instructs to take measures for broadband internet access in cities and villages
Prime Minister of the country Bakytzhan Sagintayev, in turn, recalled the need for broadband Internet.
"Providing broadband Internet access is not just our requirement. It is the contemporary imperative on the agenda of many states. We should not lag behind. We have adopted the required documents, made all the decisions," the Prime Minister stressed.
The control over the implementation is assigned to Deputy Prime Minister Askar Zhumagaliyev. He, in turn, reported that the work on providing rural Broadband Internet access is being actively carried out, all issues on this program are being addressed.
"By the end of 2018, we need to start providing Broadband Internet access. We plan to conduct the introduction of 5G in the pilot mode in 2019. The final decision will be made after the completion of the pilot regime. We studied the best practices, including countries such as the UK and Estonia. We will develop data centers to store data and process it. Broadband Internet programs implementation will be under strict control," Zhumagaliyev said
According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the goal of the Digital Kazakhstan Governmental Program is to accelerate the pace of economic development and to improve the living standards through the use of digital technologies and to ensure the creation of a digital economy in the long term. One of the objectives of the program is the development of telecommunications infrastructure. In this regard, a number of projects are being implemented: broadband access to villages, 5G, and data centers.
Minister of Information and Communications Dauren Abayev stressed that it is only after the International Telecommunication Union adopts the 5G standard when the telecommunications equipment manufacturers will begin mass production of appropriate devices operating within the standard adopted.
"In turn, the Ministry plans to conduct pilot testing of the 5G mobile communication technology in the second quarter of 2019. For the pilot testing of the 5G mobile communication technology, the ministry has done work on the frequency band selection in Astana and Almaty cities and in Akmola and Almaty regions and the respective approval by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan," Abayev added.
The implementation of the project "Provision of broadband access to rural communities of the Republic of Kazakhstan in fiber-optic communication technology" will allow to connect government bodies and budgetary institutions to telecommunication services in 1,249 rural settlements of the country using fiber-optic communication technology with a total communication capacity of at least 50 Mbit/s, which contributes to the elimination of the digital inequality between urban and rural areas.
To place information systems of state bodies in commercial data centers, it is proposed to divide the list of information systems into two groups according to classes in accordance with the Rules for the classification of information objects.
The project "Creation of Big Data technological analysis" is an infrastructure platform for the development of the e-government and provision of facilities for future digitalization projects of the Action Plan of the Digital Kazakhstan Governmental Program.
Kazakhtelecom plans to provide 6,212 rural settlements having the population of 7,622,927 people with Broadband Internet access until the end of 2021.
In his report, CEO of Kazakhtelecom JSC Kuanyshbek Yessekeyev said that the company participates in a competitive project to develop and provide broadband high-speed Internet. In the connection range, there are 828 rural settlements that cover 4.8 million people.
"The total number of fiber-optic lines that will be built in the next three years is 14,217 km. It is planned to connect 2,496 government bodies to them. The average amount of investment is about KZT 50 billion," Yessekeyev informed.
In addition, according to him, within the framework of 5G development, Kazakhtelecom is currently working with manufacturers on providing hardware and software to begin testing 5G, and developing a test plan for 5G. As a result, it was confirmed that one of the vendors will provide the equipment and software to start testing.