Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Mikhail Doroshevich
http://www.e-belarus.org
 Internet in Belarus: Some
Facts
1. Penetration
2. Infrastructure
3. Cost main internet services
4. Internet Users
5. Domain .BY
6. E-Government
7. Content
8. Political parties
9. NGO
10. Conclusions
Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

100% 95%
90%
80% mobile
70%
60%
50%
37% 33,40%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Lithuania Belarus Ukraine

30,00% 28,09%

25,00%
internet
20,00%
16,24%
15,00%

10,00% 7,79%

5,00%

0,00%

Lithuania Belarus Ukraine

 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Infrastructure:

36 providers: 18 xDSL, 31 dial-up, 2 cable services

 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Cost main internet services:

Dial-up 20 hours per week 7.4 USD

Dial-up 30 hours per week 15 USD
Dial-up 40 hours per week 20 USD
Unmetered access 60 USD/mo
ADSL (500 MB traffic) 26 USD/mo
ADSL/IDSL (600 MB traffic) 50 USD/mo
ADSL (1 GB traffic) 100 USD/mo
Broadband (1 GB traffic) 50 USD/mo
 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts
Internet Users:

60% - Minsk, 20% - regional cities

2500000
2500000

2000000
1600000
1409780
1500000

1000000 808700

422200
500000

0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 est.
 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Domain .BY

Registrator: http://www.tld.by
Cost of registration, one time - 50 USD
Cost of technical support for one year - 50 USD.
Small zone: 3.500 records
(For example: .ru – 368.000, .de – 6.000.000)
No whois services.
 Internet in Belarus: Some
Facts
E-Government
only 74 (8,2 percent) of 903 analyzed national, regional
and district government bodies are represented online.

At the same time 73,2 percent of national government

institutions (41 from 56), 11 percent of regional (8 from
72) and 3 percent of district (25 from 775) government
bodies have their websites.

Among the 74 reviewed web-sites 41 (55,4percent)

represent national, 8 (10 percent) – regional and 25
(33,8 percent) –district governing bodies.
22 percent of all websites are not updated.
 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

General eGov Profile

0,6

0,5

0,4 e-informing
0,3 e-participation

0,2 e- services

0,1

0
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 Internet in Belarus: Some
Content:
Facts
Search Engines: TUT.BY, all.by

Rating systems: Akavita.BY, all.by

Catalogues: all.by, catalog.tut.by, akavita

News Portal: http://www.news.by

http://www.tut.by
http://www.naviny.by
http://www.bdg.by
http://www.svaboda.org

Communities: http://www.onliner.by
http://forum.delta.by
 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Polictical parties:

199 parliamentary candidates

(49,8% of 400 registered by October 4, 2004) had their web-sites
or web-pages.

Politparty site Number of candidates

presented
Web-Sites, specially to elections 5
5+ site 116
Belarusian Parliament 61
United Civil Party Web-site 8
Lev Sapega Foundation branch 8
Others 11
Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

NGOs as well as political

parties seem to lag behind 60%
the official structures in using
the Internet: the NGOs are 50%
almost three times less likely
to rely on the Internet. 40%

30% %NGO members

The major reason behind this %Internet users
relatively limited Internet 20%
activities by the CSOs seems:
10%
besides the lack of resources,
also a lower awareness of the
0%
Internet’s potential, and, 18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+
perhaps as a result of it,
endemic “online-practices
illiteracy”, despite clear
benefits that the Internet can
offer
 Internet in Belarus: Some Facts

Conclusions:

- Undeveloped infrastructure;

- Few websites with providing useful information;

- eGovernment - interactivity lacking;

- CSOs are not aware of Internet democratic potential.

Thank You!