The Ministry of communications have identified challenges for the future| 21.07.2008
At the end of last week, the new Minister of communications and mass communications Igor Shchegolev reported on the meeting of the Presidium of the state Council of the Russian Federation on the state of the industry of information and communication technologies and
the challenges facing the Department headed by him.
We will remind, g-n Schegolev has headed the Ministry of communications of the Russian Federation in mid-may of the current year. To date, the structure of the Central apparatus of the Ministry was approved, but not all
units assigned to the chiefs.
According to Igor Shchegolev, Russia has achieved a certain level of development of the information society. However, the targets of the “strategy of information society development”
will require further concentration of intellectual, organizational and financial resources, and clarify development priorities. That is, the refiners, in particular, the same targets.
The head of the Ministry of communications has called a number of unresolved problems in the field of ICT. To them he attributed the preservation of the digital divide (disparities in access) of the population in relation to the main
infocommunication services development project universal communication services, Informatization of healthcare, the development of domestic production in ICT, tax and administrative
the support of IT enterprises.
Based on these problems, Mr. Shchegolev brought and objectives of the Ministry of communications in the near future. So, to eliminate the digital divide, the Minister has proposed to implement the range of measures, including
the conversion of the radio frequency spectrum, the creation of conditions for increasing the share of spectrum used for civil purposes.
It is worth noting that in this direction the work of the Ministry. However, it is up to the end of its existence and are unable to agree with the defense plan of the conversion
the radio frequency spectrum. The stumbling block here was the source of funding for the relevant works. According to the ICT Ministry, this task will take about 58 billion rubles.
The issue of the draft universal service Igor Shchegolev sees in particular that, despite its successful implementation, the access infrastructure in remote places is not created. At the same time
The Ministry of communications said that the current volume of contributions from Telecom operators to the universal service Fund exceeds current payments to compensate operators participating in their costs of providing
universal services. So, at the end of the current year the balance on the accounts of the Fund are expected to be about 2 billion rubles. These funds Agency intends to send to pay for the Internet access
libraries, museums and hospitals on the basis of which it is also proposed to arrange the provision of universal communication services.
Separately, the Ministry of communications proposes to allocate funds for the improvement of community access points (caps), organized at the offices of “Mail of Russia” (about 20 thousand) For the assessment
the Ministry of PKD in the mail do not provide the necessary speed of the Internet.
Still two problems, the solution of which Mr. Schegolev has suggested to pay attention to is the creation of a system of support for schools and Informatization of healthcare institutions. In the first case we are talking about
organization of interschool methodical centers, each of which have to serve from 20 to 100 schools. It is proposed to use the results of pilot projects on the organization of such centers in
seven regions of the Russian Federation, implemented with the money of the world Bank. As for the Informatization of the healthcare sector, here the Ministry of communications advises to do in the first place, the creation of the accounting system to provide medical
services.
In the area of economic support ICT companies Igor Shchegolev proposed to equate developers to small businesses. Replace all existing taxes and a single tax
turnover of 6%. This step is the head of the Ministry explains that the current tax incentives “to apply in practice impossible due to the fact that the formed drop-down contributions to
Pension Fund, and employees in these firms will receive less than the personal account to the pension Fund, which is directly contrary to their constitutional rights.”
In addition, the Ministry of communications believes that the Russian ICT industry, it is time to get rid of dependence on foreign suppliers of computer and telecommunications equipment, and software
security. For this Ministry offers to “bring to the stage of full practical implementation of plans for the development of software based on free code”, and provide
state support for the establishment of advanced models of computer and telecommunications equipment.
