Development Trends of Information Infrastructure in the Russian Far East

• Published in: Spatial Economics
• Main Author: Aleksandr Isaakovich Itsixon
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Economic Research Institute of the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2018
• Subjects: regional economy; digital inequality; dynamics of development; Internet access; level of consumption; cost of Internet traffic; stationary and mobile users; Economics as a science; HB71-74; Chukotka
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.14530/se.2018.4.162-171; https://doaj.org/article/59e990e6d35b47ed91d8ee31b8b40535

The article is devoted to determining the development trends of the Far Eastern infrastructure, which is built on the platforms of Internet and mobile network access. The provision of documentary telecommunication services allows to remove the restrictions of access to television, Internet, telephone (cellular and fixed), radio communications. Based on the official statistics the article studies the dynamics of infrastructure development and estimates the consumption of services by the population and entities in the Russian Far East. The author determined quantity indicators that allow comparing levels of infrastructure development. The analysis allowed to determine main trends of infrastructure development in the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD). The FEFD has a significant differentiation of infrastructure development levels, slowly mitigated by the construction of backbone and intrazonal fiber optic lines. The lowest indicators can be seen in the Chukotka Autonomous district, where the cost of traffic is ten times higher and the volume of consumption is ten times lower than the regional average. One possible solution to this issue is to build a unified system of fiber optic lines along the existing highways, which would make this socially important project payable. The income from mobile services (of 2G) is falling in the FEFD, as well as in Russia, which is somewhat compensated by mobile Internet services (3G and 4G). The most perspective regions for the development of mobile network are the Jewish Autonomous region, the Amur Oblast and the Primorsky Krai. Legal entities have been consuming approximately the same level of services (in respect to GRP), so the main direction of development should be creating communication lines and supplying Internet access for the population