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Telecommunications in Belarus involves the availability and use of electronic devices and services, such as the telephone, television, radio or computer, for the purpose of communication.


Telephone system

* Telephone lines in use: 3,9741 million (2011)."Развитие связи в Беларуси"
, BELTA 6 May 2011
* Mobile/cellular: 11,559,473 subscribers (Q1 2019). * The phone calling code for Belarus is +375. The Ministry of Telecommunications controls all telecommunications originating within the country through its carrier
unitary enterprise A unitary enterprise () is a government-owned corporation in Russia and some other post-Soviet states. Unitary enterprises are business entities that have no ownership rights to the assets that they use in their operations. This form is possibl ...
, Beltelecom. 200px, Telephone booths in Minsk, September 2007">Minsk.html" ;"title="Telephone booths in Minsk">Telephone booths in Minsk, September 2007
Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...
has a digital metropolitan network; waiting lists for telephones are long; fixed line penetration is improving although rural areas continue to be underserved; intercity – Belarus has developed a fibre-optic backbone system presently serving at least 13 major cities (1998). Belarus's fibre optics form synchronous digital hierarchy rings through other countries' systems.


International connection

Belarus is a member of the Trans-European Line (TEL), Trans-Asia-Europe Fibre-Optic Line (TAE) and has access to the Trans-Siberia Line (TSL); three fibre-optic segments provide connectivity to
Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, Russia, and
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
; worldwide service is available to Belarus through this infrastructure;
Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly Intel-Sat, Intelsat) is a Luxembourgish-American multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, United States. Originally formed ...
,
Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it has been the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Its subsidiary E ...
, and
Intersputnik The Intersputnik International Organization of Space Communications, commonly known as Intersputnik, is an international satellite communications services organization founded on 15 November 1971, in Moscow by the Soviet Union along with a group o ...
earth stations. In 2006 it was announced that Belarus and Russia completed the second broadband link between the two countries, the Yartsevo-
Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...
cable. The capacity of this high speed terrestrial link which based on DWDM and STM technology is 400 Gbit/s with the ability to upgrade in the future.


Cellular communications

Belarus has 3 GSM/UMTS operators – A1, MTS, life:). For 4G data operators use the infrastructure managed by state operator beCloud, VoLTE service currently is offered only with A1.


Radio and television

* Television broadcast stations: 100 of which 59 are privately owned."Mass media in Belarus"
Belarus.by, the Official Website of the Republic of Belarun, July 2016
Belarus has switched from an analog to digital broadcast television. The process finished in May 2015. Belarus broadcasts according to the
DVB-T2 DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial telev ...
standard with
MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
compression. * Radio broadcast stations: 173 with 24 privately owned, including 30 FM stations. * Radios: 3.02 million (1997).


Internet

* Country code: .by The state telecom monopoly, Beltelecom, holds the exclusive interconnection with Internet providers outside of Belarus. Beltelecom owns all the backbone channels that linked to the Lattelecom, TEO LT,
Tata Communications Tata Communications Limited (previously known as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) is an Indian telecommunications company. It was a government-owned telecommunications service provider before being sold to the Tata Group in 2002 under the Third ...
(former
Teleglobe VSNL International Canada or Tata Communications (Canada) ULC (formerly Teleglobe) is an international telco carrier. The company is a subsidiary of Tata Communications, part of India's Tata Group and based in Montreal, Quebec. Part of their re ...
), Synterra,
Rostelecom Rostelecom (Ростелеком) is Russia’s largest provider of digital services for a wide variety of consumers, households, private businesses, government and municipal authorities, and other telecom providers. Rostelecom interconnects all ...
, Transtelekom and MTS ISP's. Beltelecom is the only operator licensed to provide commercial VoIP services in Belarus."ONI Country Profile: Belarus"
OpenNet Initiative, 18 November 2010
Until 2005–2006 broadband access (mostly using
ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...
) was available only in a few major cities in Belarus. In
Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...
there were a dozen privately owned ISP's and in some larger cities Beltelecom's broadband was available. Outside these cities the only options for Internet access were
dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...
from Beltelecom or
GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...
/
cdma2000 CDMA2000 (also known as C2K or IMT Multi‑Carrier (IMT‑MC)) is a family of 3G mobile technology standards for sending voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. It is developed by 3GPP2 as a backwards-compatib ...
from mobile operators. In 2006 Beltelecom introduced a new trademark, ''Byfly'', for its
ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...
access. As of 2008 Byfly was available in all
administrative centre An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgi ...
s of Belarus. Other ISPs are expanding their broadband networks beyond Minsk as well. Internet use: * According to a 2006 survey of 1,500 adults by Satio, a third of Belarusians use the Internet—38% of the urban population and 16% of the rural population. * A 2006 study by the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the United Nations General Assembl ...
indicates 56.5% of Belarus' population were internet-users. * The
International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)In the other common languages of the ITU: * * is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information ...
showed Internet penetration (Internet users per 100 population) in 2009 at 27% for Belarus, 42% for Serbia, 37% for Romania, 29% for Russia, and 17% for Ukraine. * According to Internet World Stats, Internet penetration in June 2010 was 47.5%. For comparison, Internet penetration in Ukraine was 33.7%, in Romania 35.5%, Russia 42.8%, and Serbia 55.9%. The most active Internet users in Belarus belong to the 17–22 age group (38 percent), followed by users in the 23–29 age group. Internet access in Belarus is predominantly urban, with 60 percent of users living in the capital Minsk. The profile of the average Internet user is male, university educated, living in the capital, and working in a state enterprise. The Ministry for Statistics and Analysis estimates that one in four families in Belarus owns a computer at home. The popularity of
Internet café An Internet café, also known as a cybercafé, is a Coffeehouse, café (or a convenience store or a fully dedicated Internet access business) that provides the use of computers with high bandwidth Internet access on the payment of a fee. Usage ...
s has fallen in recent years, as most users prefer to access the Internet from home or work. Russian is the most widely used language by Belarusians on the Internet, followed by Belarusian, English, and Polish. In mid-2009 there were more than 22,300 Belarusian Web sites, of which roughly 13,500 domain names were registered with the top-level domain name " .by". In June 2011 E-Belarus.org listed: * 2 ISPs in the Brest region, 4 in the Gomel region, 1 in the Grodno region, 26 in the Minsk region, 1 in the Mogilev region, and 1 in the Vitebsk region * 4 ADSL providers * 3 technology parks * 2 educational networks * more than 30
Internet cafes The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, publ ...
and Wi-Fi Hotspots


Censorship and media freedom

Many western human rights groups state that
civil right Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
s and free expression are severely limited in Belarus, though there are some individuals and groups that refuse to be controlled and some journalists have disappeared. Because the Belarus government limits freedom of expression, several opposition media outlets are broadcast from nearby countries to help provide Belarusians an alternative points of view. This includes the Polish state-owned
Belsat Belsat (; ; stylised as B☰LSAT) is a Polish free-to-air terrestrial and satellite television channel aimed at Belarus. The channel is a subsidiary of TVP S.A. From the outset, it has been co-funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs a ...
TV station and
European Radio for Belarus European Radio for Belarus (ERB; ; ), also known as Euroradio (; ), is an international radio station that provides independent news, information, and entertainment to the citizens of Belarus. It launched on 26 February 2006. ERB operates on FM b ...
(Eŭrapéjskaje Rádyjo dla Biełarúsi)
Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...
ranked
Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
157th out of 178 countries in its 2014
Press Freedom Index The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is an annual ranking of Country, countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002 based upon the non-governmental organization's own assessment of the countries' Freedom of the ...
. By comparison, the same index ranked neighbor Ukraine, 126th and Russia, 148th. In the 2011
Freedom House Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, Freedom (political), political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, wi ...
''Freedom of the Press report'', Belarus scored 92 on a scale from 10 (most free) to 99 (least free), because the government allegedly systematically curtails press freedom. This score placed Belarus 9th from the bottom of the 196 countries included in the report and earned the country a "Not Free" status."Country report: Belarus"
''Freedom of the Press 2011'', Freedom House, 21 April 2011


References


External links


The Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus
(Belarusian)
The Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus
(Belarusian)

e-Belarus.org
Mass media in Belarus
on th
official website of the Republic of Belarus
Major telecommunications operators in Belarus (in Belarusian):
BeltelecomMTS (GSM)A1 (GSM)Life (GSM)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telecommunications In Belarus Internet in Belarus ru:Интернет в Белоруссии