ASTANA – Fixed mobile convergence services will be a major priority for JSC Kazakhtelecom across Kazakhstan beginning this September while by next year all rural areas in the country will be provided with telecommunications services and the Internet, the company’s chairman of the board of said on June 3.
Kuanyshbek Yessekeyev, speaking to reporters at a briefing of the Central Communications Service, provided information on the activities and priority areas of the national company under the current conditions of globalisation and increasing competence in the telecommunications market.
The development of telecommunications is an important condition for large-scale industrial and innovative development and increasing Kazakhstan’s competitiveness, Yessekeyev explained. The government pays special attention to issues of the development of telecommunication services, the provision of Internet access to the population and the improvement of quality and reduction of cost of Internet services.
In particular, Yessekeyev said that full provision of rural areas with telecommunications services and the Internet will be possible next year. “I think that next year it will be possible to speak about one hundred percent coverage of all rural settlements,” he said.
However, he noted that the provision of villages with Internet connections also depends on the process of urbanisation.
According to the company, as of June 1 of this year, the number of fixed telephone lines in households and organisations in the country had reached four million. Over the past year, the number of broadband connections grew by 30 percent and amounted to 1.3 million. In addition, the number of connections to iDNet service for five months of this year has almost doubled, to 182,000, and at moment there are 182,000 ID TV customers.
Kazakhtelecom intends to take a major niche in providing an integrated package of services to the population through the creation of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services.
“Our company will provide a set of system services for households, including fixed-line telephony, Internet at home, free television and mobile communications. In the next five years, we want to come to this service convergence and the company wants to have the main niche in the provision of such services as FMC,” Chairman Yessekeyev said.
“One of the innovations is an integration and creation of FMC at the point of service—an integration of fixed and mobile networks, where the company will provide a package for the family and it will be possible to pay immediately for fixed services and mobile services together. We plan to do this from September,” he said.
At the same time, he noted that innovations are also expected in tariff plans for the provision of 4G services. “The second issue is innovations in the 4G connection, which is high speed… We will have interesting tariff plans. At present we have involved skilled marketing consultants who are working at providing interesting tariff plans.”
According to the chairman, Kazakhtelecom will review their marketing strategy and will introduce service management.
“The company will introduce service management internally and we will revise the liaison protocol with our customers in order for our service to be faster and stronger,” Yessekeyev concluded.
