Internet and Democratization: The Development of Russian Internet Policy, The

Demokratizatsiya, Fall 2004 by Alexander, Marcus

One of the main reasons for Russia's lag behind developed countries is that the country's telecommunication infrastructure remains underdeveloped, with poor quality analog telephone lines and long waiting times for new phone numbers. Despite a doubling of cellular service subscribers in 2003 (from 18 to 36 billion), and the number of cellular phones outnumbering fixed line phones, the cellular penetration remains well under one-third of the population.5 Internet provider services remain unrealistically expensive in comparison to mean household income, even for the basic subscription.6 Yet, with two hundred telephone lines per one thousand people in 1999 and 3.5 Internet hosts per one thousand people, Russia was far ahead of other large developing countries such as India and China in both access to telephone lines (ground and cellular) and in the number of Internet hosts (figure 3).7 Table 1 compares the proliferation of Russia's media technology with China, Poland, and the United States. By most indicators, Russia is ahead of China, which is expected given Russia's overall level of development.

Russia inherited a wealth of scientific resources from the communist era, including some of the world's best scientists, who outnumbered American scientists by one-third in 1991. However, this human capital advantage has slowly declined over the years, with Russian research spending declining from more than 2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to less than one-third of 1 percent. The number of scientists has been halved, and they rank tenth out of eleven employment categories. When it comes to IT and media development, Russia lags behind not only developed countries but also behind transition economies, such as Poland, with significantly higher levels of relative investment in IT technology and growth of Internet use.

The relatively high number of Internet hosts compared to other developing countries is also characterized by a high government stake in the Internet service provider (ISP) market. In March 2000, the largest ISP in Russia was Relcom, followed by Demos and Russia On-line. Relcom was entirely government-owned and enjoyed a near-monopoly in the market, with its Moscow hub subscribing ten thousand users and approximately one hundred fifty other regional hubs with an average of five hundred to one thousand subscribers.8 By 2003, the ISP market was run by five operators, who controlled 84 percent of services. In all, about three hundred ISPs compete for more than $220 million in total revenue from Internet access.9

An ethnographic snapshot of the Russian Internet makes the empirical picture of Internet proliferation more accurate. A tour of Moscow's Internet cafés gives one picture of the current Russian Internet use, at least in public spaces. In the affluent neighborhood of Vorobyovi Gori, a local computer hardware store in the basement of an apartment building was recently refurbished into an "Internet and game café." The customers are mainly boys aged seven to twelve, playing online video games, at a cost of one dollar per hour. Not far away from the neighborhood café is the grandiose campus of the Moscow State University. In its Humanitarian Complex II-which houses the faculties of history, economics, politics, law, philosophy, religious studies, and public policy-one can also find an Internet café. The main users are students; they surf for news and term papers, and one dollar will buy them thirty minutes. Finally, there are the super-Internet cafés, such as TimeOnline, located on the lowest level of the shopping mall Okhotny Ryad, which is "one of the world's miracles," according to the recorded announcement that welcomes everyone from tourists to the Moscow elite into the underground complex on Manyezhna Ploschad adjacent to the Kremlin. The NightOnline deal offers about eight hours, starting at midnight, for just under $3.20. The café is packed with teens and young adults, and they use the café's approximately three hundred flat-screen computers to chat, surf the Web for music, or, occasionally, prepare term papers or search for jobs.10