Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure in Barents Region

Background
According to the surveys published in December 2003, the use of Internet is increasing rapidly in Russia, and North-West Russia (incl. St. Petersburg) is one of the regions where the increase has been most rapid 20021). The access to Internet is still much lower in NW Russia than in the Nordic countries, but the potential for increase is big because of high educational level and a great need and interest for taking Internet and data communication into use.

Weaknesses today
In the Nordic countries access to broadband communication are quite widespread and more and more of the services and co-operation are based on broadband communication (e-learning, telemedicine, research co-operation and co-operation between public authorities). The limited broadband capacity between the Nordic countries in the Barents region and NW Russia hamper the co-operation between the member states.

From a strategic point of view all the national fibre infrastructures have one weakness: there are limited ring structures and therefore no redundancy (back-up) if a cable is broken. From a business point of view there is a limited number of potential customers at each national end point.

Strategic opportunities
By connecting the fibre optic infrastructures across the national borders one will achieve the following:

  • The business potential will increase as the region becomes one common market for e-commerce and Internet based services.
  • The possibilities for co-operation between ICT professionals will increase. Such co-operation also represent an important business potential.
  • A broadband infrastructure is a strategic condition for co-operation within the petroleum industries and environment protection. 
  • The problem of redundancy is eliminated.
  • The Barents region becomes an attractive region for transit of a larger volume of Internet traffic. One can expect that the demand for Internet bandwidth will increase very rapidly both in Northwest and Central Russia.

The eBarents project aims to map the basic IT infrastructure in the main cities in the Russian Barents counties. The project covers the main IT infrastructure and Internet capacities, development of access to Internet, possibility for user support as well as density of PC’s and Internet connections in the area.

Report: IT Infrastructure in the Barents Region, 2004 [pdf]

Development of IT in the Republic of Karelia, 2005 [7 Mb pdf]
by Olga Derbeneva
Head of Educational Technologies Department
Regional Center of New Information Technologies
Petrozavodsk State University, Russia

Overview on the IT development in the Republic of Karelia.

  • General situation with Internet development
  • Development of information resources
  • GIS resources
  • ICT in education
  • Training of ICT specialists
  • Libraries
  • ICT in business
  • E-karelia project
  • Petrozavodsk State University and ICT
  • Companies and tele operators in Karelia


1)  http://english.fom.ru/reports/frames/eo030501.html . In NW Russia the percentage of the population with access to Internet has increased from 10 to 19 last year while the average increase in Russia has been from 8 to 12.