14.05.09

The number of Internet users in Russia may grow with last year's speed in 2009, Communications and Mass Media Minister Igor Shchyogolev said on Tuesday.

"We think that the number of Internet users in Russia will grow by 34% in 2009," he said.

Last year the number of Russian Internet users enlarged by 34.3% to 47 million.

The 2,000,000th site of the Ru domain was registered this March, and Russia took the 6th-7th place in the overall rating of national domains, the minister said.

Over a third of Russian Internet users have broadband access but the average speed of Internet connection is only 410 kilobytes per second with the exception of Moscow and St. Petersburg (over 7 megabytes per second).

Russia ranks the world's 17th by the fast connection indicator of capital cities. It is the first runner-up of the United States (8.33 megabytes per second). The world leader is Japan with 63 megabytes per second;

South Korea ranks second with 49 megabyte, and France ranks third with 17 megabytes.

Meanwhile, the cost of Internet services is higher in Russian regions than in the capital city, Shchyogolev said.

About Alinga Consulting Group

    Audit and Taxation     Legal     Accounting and Payroll

Questions? Ask Alinga's Experts!

Source: Itar-Tass