2008 Europe - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine

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Last updated: 14 Oct 2008 Update History

Report Status: Archived

Report Pages: 138

Analyst: Stephen McNamara

Publication Overview

This report covers Russia and the neighbouring countries of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. Trends and developments in telecommunications, mobile, Internet, broadband, digital TV and converging media including VoIP, VoD and IPTV developments. Subjects include:

  • Market and industry analyses, trends and developments
  • Facts, figures and statistics
  • Industry and regulatory issues
  • Research, Marketing, Benchmarking
  • Major Players, Revenues, Subscribers, Network deployments
  • VoIP, ADSL, ADSL2+, FttH, WiFi, WiMAX, IPTV, VoD, triple play, digital TV, DTTV, i-mode, 3G

Researcher:- Paul Kwon

Current publication date:- October 2008 (7th Edition)

Next publication date:- October 2009

Executive Summary

BuddeComm’s annual publication 2008 Europe – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine delves into the expanding telecom markets of Eastern Europe’s most populous region. Rapid modernisation and development is transforming the region’s markets as existing and new market participants upgrade or deploy infrastructure to introduce new or competing services such as broadband, IPTV, triple play and 3G/HSDPA mobile broadband. 

This report is essential reading for those seeking a succinct overview of the telecom markets of Eastern Europe’s most populous region, including an assessment of sector liberalisation and privatisation, together with the key regulatory measures which affect competition and investment. Significant alternative operators in liberalised markets are introduced and new infrastructure deployments covered. The expanding broadband market in each country is examined, detailing subscriber figures, service providers and technologies used. All mobile network operators in the region are presented, along with essential financial and operational data while developments in each country’s digital TV and convergence market are also highlighted. 

Key highlights:

·        Broadband continues to gain popularity on the back of competition. Poor regulatory access regimes in all four countries have resulted in alternative operators deploying their own access networks, focusing predominantly on Fibre-to-the-Building, cable and wireless technologies. With incumbents in all four countries still majority state-owned, this scenario is unlikely to change in 2009.

·         Broadband connections exceed dial-up in Russia, where FTTx is the most popular broadband access technology due to large scale take-up of the technology by both incumbent and alternative operators.

·         In Moldova current growth rates point to broadband connections exceeding that of dial-up in 2009.

·        Moving to take advantage of the underserved broadband market are the region’s CDMA mobile operators, all of which are minor players in increasingly saturated mobile voice markets. Such operators in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine are expanding network coverage, upgrading network speeds and launching competitively priced mobile broadband services bundled with prepaid data bundles.

·         In Belarus, the CDMA operator is the only mobile operator offering mobile broadband services while in Ukraine a group of CDMA operators that previously focused only on fixed-line services are now offering aggressively priced mobile broadband services.

·        Moldova’s two dominant GSM operators launched WCDMA 3G/HSDPA networks in late-2008, leaving Belarus as the only country yet to launch WCDMA 3G services. Competing 3G services availability is expected to drive down mobile broadband rates that, coupled with increasingly sophisticated handsets, will expand the market for mobile content and applications. This will particularly be the case for countries with saturated mobile voice markets, such as Russia where the three major mobile operators are planning to expand during 2009 initial WCDMA 3G networks.

·        Ukraine’s cable market has undergone consolidation, with one operator dominating the market and in a position to better compete with the expected 2009 launch of IPTV services by the telecoms incumbent.

·        Across the region IPTV is becoming commonplace, with launches undertaken in Belarus, Moldova and Russia. IPTV is most likely to be championed by telecom incumbents that are on the privatisation agenda, as is the case in Russia and Ukraine.

 

Mobile subscribers and penetration rate in Belarus, Moldova, Russia & Ukraine – March 2008

Country

Subscribers (million)

Penetration

Belarus

7.5

72.5%

Moldova

1.9

42.7%

Russia

168.7

118.8%

Ukraine

54.9

118.6%

(Source: BuddeComm based on ITU and Global Mobile data)

 

 

Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

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