Expert: Russia ranked 2nd by mobile tariffs affordability in 2016

MOSCOW, Jan 24 (PRIME) -- Russia was ranked second by affordability of prepaid mobile cellular tariffs, following Hong Kong, in the Global Information Technology Report 2016 of the World Economic Forum, released Tuesday.

Russia was also ranked 10th by affordability of fixed broadband Internet tariffs and remained in the 41st place in the networked readiness index, as in 2015.

“The country places in the top third of the rankings for Readiness, Usage, and Impact, yet continues to be held back by a weak and deteriorating regulatory environment. As mobile and fixed Internet tariffs are very low and dropping further, the 10th place overall on affordability, individual usage continues to rise in almost every dimension, leaving Russia in the 40th place in this category,” the document read.

“However, the data suggest that infrastructure build-out is not keeping up with demand as Russia sees its availability of Internet bandwidth per user falling.”

“Although Russia is close to the median in terms of business use overall, online sales to consumers, as opposed to other firms, are particularly strong, the 35th place. The positive impact of information and communications technologies is felt both in the economic and the social dimensions, as reflected in rankings in the top third for both impact pillars.”

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