BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 27
Trend:
Kazakhstan rose by three lines in the rating of countries by the speed of mobile Internet for September and took 80th place, improving position by 21 lines since the beginning of 2021, Trend reports with reference to finprom.kz.
According to the information, the Internet speed in Kazakhstan since the beginning of the year has increased from 19.52 to 31.74 Mbit / s, that is, the growth amounted to 62.6 percent.
It is noted that among the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan is the leader in terms of the speed of mobile Internet. Thus, Kyrgyzstan took 103rd place, Uzbekistan - 120th, Tajikistan - 129th. With a noticeable margin, Kazakhstan bypassed its partners from the EAEU - Russia (90th place) and Belarus (119th place). The leaders in the ranking are the UAE, South Korea, Norway, Qatar and China.
It is reported that serious measures are being taken in Kazakhstan to improve the availability and quality of mobile Internet. Thus, for nine months of this year, investments in the communications sector increased by 17.8 percent and amounted to 88.8 billion tenge ($208 million). Over the past five years, the amount of capital investments has been growing by an average of 19 percent per year.
In addition, work continues on the implementation of 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communications, which will also positively affect the growth of Internet speeds. In 2019, the country's mobile operators have already begun testing a new network. The implementation of the 5G network, coupled with the analysis of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), is intended to become one of the foundations of the digital economy of Kazakhstan.
In September 2021, the Minister of Digital Development said that the interdepartmental commission on radio frequencies under the government had decided to test 5G mobile communications in three cities of Kazakhstan - Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Shymkent. In addition, base stations of the 5G network are being commissioned in Turkestan.
According to the schedule, the right to conduct testing was granted to several operators, including Kazakhtelecom JSC, Kcell JSC, Kar-Tel LLP, Mobile Telecom-Service LLP. These operators accounted for the bulk of the work to improve the infrastructure and improve the quality of the Internet. Thus, in 1H2021, the capital expenditures of the mobile operator Kcell amounted to 4.7 billion tenge ($11 million) - immediately 28.3 percent more than in the corresponding period last year.
According to the Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of Kazakhstan, in 2Q2021, 45 percent and 39 percent of the surveyed enterprises in general in communications mastered investments in fixed assets and equipment, respectively. The main areas of investment are replacing old equipment, expanding production facilities in order to increase the number of subscribers, investing in the introduction of new technologies, etc.
Also, following the results of 1H2021, there were 24.2 million mobile subscribers in the country, which is 1.2 percent more than last year. Among mobile operators of Kazakhstan, the largest growth in the number of subscribers is observed in Kcell (plus 2.1 percent per year, up to eight million). Meanwhile, the number of Beeline subscribers increased by 2.07 percent to 9.6 million, while Tele2 / Altel had 6.5 million subscribers.
In general, according to existing forecasts, in the period from 2019 to 2025, the number of mobile Internet users in Kazakhstan will increase by 54 percent. It is assumed that by that time, 3G services will account for only 28 percent of the total market, while the lion's share (60 percent) will come from 4G technologies, and new 5G networks will already cover 12 percent of the market. It is highly likely that after the long-awaited launch of the 5G network in 2021, the vast majority of mobile connections by 2029 will already be carried out through this network.