The Condition of The Internet in
Kyrgystan
Kyrgyzstan is a small country in central Asia,
landlocked and mountainous. Its geographical position sometimes
means that it is affected by the political considerations of its
neighbours.
The official ruling on internet provision is that of free market
economy welcoming both foreign and domestic suppliers. There are as
many as 38 local internet service providers, or ISPs. However only
three of these are linked to the international internet namely:
KyrgyzTelecom, SaimoTelecom and Elcat. Of these KyrgyzTelecom is
state controlled and leases lines and cables to many of the smaller
local suppliers; and government has a 50% interest in Elcat. When it
is remembered that in 1996 there were only two internet suppliers in
the country (AsiaInfo and Elcat) it is easier to see that
Kyrgyzstan’s internet market is growing steadily, albeit slowly.
With financial assistance from the Soros Foundation ISPs, AsiaInfo &
Totel, have begun to install fibre optic cables, extending their
reach as needed. The Soros Foundation has also helped to finance an
Internet Traffic Exchange Point (IXP) in the country.
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Despite the lack of government control as regards the internet there
are still hindrances in place. The country relies on buying its
bandwidth from neighbouring Kazakhstan and Russia, and when the
former places tight controls on the internet for its citizens this
censorship trickles downstream to Kyrgyzstan. Another problem is the
lack of rural infrastructure. Internet systems tend to be focused in
the two largest cities, the capital Bishkek where 77% of internet
users are concentrated and Osh. Rural internet access does exist,
but is sparse and suffers from unreliable connectivity. Only about
2% of the population have private internet connections at home, but
total market penetration is estimated to be anywhere from 8 – 13% of
the population. Fifty-one per cent of users access the internet at
work, 21% use their mobile phones and 20% access the web through
internet cafes and other public access points. A large proportion of
users, about half, are students and 25% list themselves as
‘unemployed’.
High-speed broadband is relatively rare; most provision points use
dial-up, although businesses can take advantage of 64Kbps lines
fairly easily.
A big plus for Kyrgyzstan is its stated free market for internet
service provision and this will stand it in good stead for the
future. Development is slow but going in the right direction and as
the infrastructure is expanded and improved upon there will be
opportunities for service providers and customers to make the most
of the world-wide-web; this will help overcome the two main current
problems, strict upstream filtering and poor rural access.
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