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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kazakstan
Index
Experts consider Kazakstan's telecommunications facilities inadequate
to support the type of economic expansion sought in the mid-1990s. The
Ministry of Transport and Communications is the only provider of
telecommunications services; its responsibilities include management and
regulation of all aspects of the republic's telephone, telex, telegraph,
data communications, radio, television, and postal services.
In 1994 only seventeen of every 100 people in urban areas and 7.6 of
every 100 people in rural areas had telephones. These figures were above
average for Central Asia but lower than those for other CIS countries. Of
the republic's total of about 2.2 million telephones, 184,000 were located
in Almaty. Current equipment is utilized at a rate of 98 percent, leaving
no room for expansion or new subscribers, although in 1992 the waiting
list had about 1 million names.
Sixty breakdowns per 100 telephone lines occur annually, a very high
rate. Because much of Kazakstan's telephone equipment, most of which came
from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, is obsolete, spare parts are
scarce. In 1992 only 8 percent of exchanges used fiber-optic and digital
equipment. International connections go through Moscow and via satellite
links to Australia and Israel. In 1992 a total of 100 channels connected
with countries outside the CIS, and 3,000 channels connected with CIS
countries.
In 1994 there were about 4.75 million televisions and 10.17 million
radios in Kazakstan. Landlines and microwave carry radio broadcasts from
other CIS republics and China; the International Telecommunications
Satellite Organization (Intelsat) and the Russian Orbita satellite system
provide satellite transmission of television broadcasts from other
countries, and the Moscow gateway switch sends international radio
broadcasts through eight telecommunications circuits. With Turkish aid, a
new satellite ground station went into operation at Almaty in 1992.
Radio and television broadcasting is the exclusive domain of the
Kazakstan State Radio and Television Company. In 1995 the broadcasting
system included three national and thirteen regional radio programs
broadcast over fifty-eight stations, an irregular Moscow relay of the
Voice of Russia and Radio Netherlands, Radio Almaty (a foreign broadcast
service offering English, German, Kazak, and Russian programming), one
domestic television channel available through eight regional stations, and
relays of two Russian channels and Kyrgyz and Turkish programming in
Almaty.
Data as of March 1996
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