Telecommunications in Belarus involves the availability and use of electronic devices and services, such as the telephone, television, radio or computer, for the purpose of communication.
The Ministry of Telecommunications controls all telecommunications originating within the country through its carrierunitary enterprise,Beltelecom.
Minsk has a digital metropolitan network; waiting lists for telephones are long; fixed line penetration is improving although rural areas continue to be underserved; intercity – Belarus has developed a fibre-optic backbone system presently serving at least 13 major cities (1998). Belarus's fibre optics form synchronous digital hierarchy rings through other countries' systems.
Belarus is a member of the Trans-European Line (TEL), Trans-Asia-Europe Fibre-Optic Line (TAE) and has access to the Trans-Siberia Line (TSL); three fibre-optic segments provide connectivity toLatvia,Poland, Russia, andUkraine; worldwide service is available to Belarus through this infrastructure;Intelsat,Eutelsat, andIntersputnik earth stations.
In 2006 it was announced that Belarus and Russia completed the second broadband link between the two countries, theYartsevo-Vitebsk cable. The capacity of this high speed terrestrial link which based on DWDM and STM technology is 400 Gbit/s with the ability to upgrade in the future.[3]
Belarus has 3 GSM/UMTS operators – A1, MTS, life:). For 4G data operators use the infrastructure managed by state operator beCloud,[4] VoLTE service currently is offered only with A1.
Belarus has switched from an analog to digital broadcast television. The process finished in May 2015. Belarus broadcasts according to theDVB-T2 standard withMPEG-4 compression.[5][6]
The state telecom monopoly, Beltelecom, holds the exclusive interconnection with Internet providers outside of Belarus. Beltelecom owns all the backbone channels that linked to the Lattelecom, TEO LT,Tata Communications (formerTeleglobe), Synterra,Rostelecom, Transtelekom and MTS ISP's. Beltelecom is the only operator licensed to provide commercial VoIP services in Belarus.[7]
Until 2005–2006 broadband access (mostly usingADSL) was available only in a few major cities in Belarus. InMinsk there were a dozen privately owned ISP's and in some larger cities Beltelecom's broadband was available. Outside these cities the only options for Internet access weredial-up from Beltelecom orGPRS/cdma2000 from mobile operators. In 2006 Beltelecom introduced a new trademark,Byfly, for itsADSL access. As of 2008 Byfly was available in alladministrative centres of Belarus. Other ISPs are expanding their broadband networks beyond Minsk as well.
Internet use:
The most active Internet users in Belarus belong to the 17–22 age group (38 percent), followed by users in the 23–29 age group. Internet access in Belarus is predominantly urban, with 60 percent of users living in the capital Minsk. The profile of the average Internet user is male, university educated, living in the capital, and working in a state enterprise. The Ministry for Statistics and Analysis estimates that one in four families in Belarus owns a computer at home. The popularity ofInternet cafés has fallen in recent years, as most users prefer to access the Internet from home or work. Russian is the most widely used language by Belarusians on the Internet, followed by Belarusian, English, and Polish.[7]
In mid-2009 there were more than 22,300 Belarusian Web sites, of which roughly 13,500 domain names were registered with the top-level domain name ".by".[7]
In June 2011 E-Belarus.org listed:[12]
Many western human rights groups state thatcivil rights and free expression are severely limited in Belarus, though there are some individuals and groups that refuse to be controlled and some journalists have disappeared.[13]
Because the Belarus government limits freedom of expression, several opposition media outlets are broadcast from nearby countries to help provide Belarusians an alternative points of view. This includes the Polish state-ownedBelsat TV station andEuropean Radio for Belarus (Eŭrapéjskaje Rádyjo dla Biełarúsi)[14]
Reporters Without Borders rankedBelarus 157th out of 178 countries in its 2014Press Freedom Index.[15] By comparison, the same index ranked neighbor Ukraine, 126th and Russia, 148th.
In the 2011Freedom HouseFreedom of the Press report, Belarus scored 92 on a scale from 10 (most free) to 99 (least free), because the government allegedly systematically curtails press freedom. This score placed Belarus 9th from the bottom of the 196 countries included in the report and earned the country a "Not Free" status.[16]
This article incorporatespublic domain material fromThe World Factbook.CIA.
Major telecommunications operators in Belarus (in Belarusian):
