Broadband adoption - Russia - 1.0
PointTopic provides a very interesting overview of the broadband market in Russia and of its specificities
the residential sector is dominated at present by the informal "Home Networks" which use Ethernet LANs to link up buildings, housing developments and sometimes whole neighbourhoods to "broadband" access (2 Mbps up to the buildings is considered the average by local observers). These operators account for some 75% residential users, or some 550,000 by end 2004, connected households throughout Russia. They are generally very low cost
Quotes a Russian consultant, the overview puts the number of broadband users to about 3,5 M in 3rd quarter 2004 (a broadband user uses broadband at least once a week, over a connection of at least a theoretical speed of 200 Kbps). Most users are in the business sector, but demand in the residential sector is strong (e.g. in Moscow, subscriptions to MTU-Intel ADSL grew from 4k to 20k in the first eight months of 2004). Analysts estimate xDSL residential lines to be around 125k, of which 100k in Moscow. Over 2004 has taken place a significant price decrease: cheaper DSL tariffs have gone below $30.
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