Communications policy

The long-term goal of the government’s information and communications technology strategy is for the telecommunications sector to contribute 5 percent to gross domestic product

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. GDP per capita is often considered an indicator of a country's standard of living....

 by 2010. The June 2006 launch of the KazSat communications satellite from Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 was expected to reduce the dependence of all the Central Asian countries on European and U.S. telecommunications satellites. Launch of a second KazSat is planned for 2009.

Telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

In the early 2000s, Kyrgyzstan used international investment support to restructure its telecommunications system, which had 7.7 telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in 2002 and 1,100,000 cellular phones in use in 2007. As part of the upgrading process, the government has attempted to sell a majority interest in the state-owned telecommunications company, Kyrgyztelecom, to foreign bidders. Companies from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, and Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 have been possible buyers. However, in 2005 an estimated 100,000 applicants were waiting for telephone line installation.

Telephone system:

domestic:
principally microwave radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 relay; one cellular provider, probably limited to Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek , formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan.Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.The name is thought to...

 region

international:
connections with other CIS countries by landline

Landline

A landline was originally an overland telegraph wire, as opposed to an undersea cable. Currently, landline refers to a telephone line which travels through a solid medium, either metal wire or optical fibre, as distinguished from a mobile cellular line, where transmission is via radio waves...

 or microwave

Microwave

Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...

 radio relay and with other countries by leased connections with Moscow international gateway switch and by satellite; satellite earth stations - 1 Intersputnik and 1 Intelsat; connected internationally by the Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic line

Internet

In the early 2000s, Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 use has expanded rapidly. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of Internet subscribers increased from 3,000 to 263,000. In 2004 some 12,300 Internet hosts were in operation. The country code top level domain is .kg.

Variable upload/download speeds through xDSL are available through state telephone company Kyrgyz Telecom (up to 8 Mbit/s downlink) and private ISPs (up to 1 Mbit/s downlink). There is typically a monthly cap on the amount of data transferred, with separate caps depending on whether the data stays within Kyrgyzstan or travels beyond the border. Broadband internet access with unlimited international traffic is rarely offered by ISPs to the market at significantly higher price. This is probably due to the lack of country's telecommunications bandwidth capacity.

ISPs provide internet access through satellite backbone communication lines linked to Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, and Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

. There is a major telecommunications project under construction - The Trans-Asia-Europe Fiber Optic Line, connecting Shanghai, China and Frankfurt, Germany, with the capacity of 622 Mbit/s, where Kyrgyzstan has completed its part. Completion of this project might affect broadband internet prices in Kyrgyzstan.

There are several ISPs that provide broadband internet access using different technologies such as xDSL, ISDN, Leased Line, Ethernet. ISPs in Kyrgyzstan include Kyrgyz Telecom, Elcat, Asiainfo, Transfer Ltd, Totel, Megaline, Aknet, Intranet, Saima Telecom, Rikonet, AlaTV, ExNET, and IPSWICH.