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The New York Times reports that Marc Seidenfeld, the 39-year-old American CEO of the Kazakhstani subsidiary of Golden Telecom, a Moscow-based Internet and telecommunications company, was arrested after a Kazakhstani citizen accused him of siphoning $40,000 from his Almaty company, pocketing funds meant to buy a piece of machinery. An assessment in February by the Almaty office of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers provided to The New York Times found that the equipment that Mr. Seidenfeld is accused of falsely listing on company books was located in the company's offices.

Mr. Seidenfeld, who speaks fluent Russian and has worked most of his career in the former Soviet Union, says his troubles began when, as chief executive, he insisted on an open auction to sell his company. Competitive bids forced Golden Telecom's sole Kazakhstani investor to raise his initial offer for the company by $5 million. Nearly a dozen former employees at Golden Telecom involved with the sale say Mr. Seidenfeld's insistence on the auction made him a target for retribution. Though his accuser was a Kazakhstani citizen, he was also an employee of Golden Telecom, which was why Mr. Seidenfeld was extradited and imprisoned in Russia.

Many foreign businesspeople in Kazakhstan say Mr. Seidenfeld's case is part of a chilling legal trend. They see it as meant to intimidate foreigners lured by Kazakhstan's booming economy and aggressive courtship of foreign investment, and say it is emblematic of Kazakhstan"s rampant use of its judicial system to punish those who have failed to further the business interests of Kazakhstanis connected to the government.

Comment:This case is of concern not only for the telecommunications industry in Kazakhstan but for foreign investment there, in general.

The full text of the article is available at the following URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/world/asia/23kazakhstan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print.

At a press conference in Almaty the general director of Microsoft Kazakhstan, Aydar Dauletov, declared that the volume of sales of Microsoft in Kazakhstan and the countries of Central Asia in the 2006 financial year grew by 47% in comparison with the last fiscal year. Dauletov added that sales in Kazakhstan have made up the greatest share of sales among all the Central Asian countries - 96%, in comparison with Uzbekistan - 2% and Kyrgyzstan - 1%. Sales in the corporate sector have grown by 52%, and in the small and medium sector businesses by 44%.

In addition, Microsoft together with its Kazakhstani partners, has completed a number of large projects using its products and technologies. Within the framework of the "Unlimited Potential" and "Partnership in Education" initiatives, 19,000 schoolchildren, 1,300 teachers and more than 5,000 ordinary Kazakhstani citizens have received training free of charge. Memorandums of cooperation with four institutions of higher education were signed in which the universities received books published by Microsoft Press and other educational materials free of charge.

The complete text of the article is available in Russian from CNews at the following URL: http://www.cnews.ru/news/line/index.shtml?2006/10/06/213059.

Comment:These developments are significant for two reasons. One is that it shows that computer users in Central Asia (or at least in Kazakhstan) are purchasing more licensed copies of Microsoft software. Illegal software pirating and usage is rampant throughout much of the developing world, and Microsoft is no doubt pleased with its new official customers. In addition, Microsoft is displaying its prowess in social entrepreneurship. By providing Kazakhstani schools and universities with free training and materials, it not only helps raise the computer literacy rate of Central Asia, it also increases Microsoft's customer base in the region.

The "Expert" Consulting Agency and Public Fund "Information Assistance", within the framework of a project on system engineering monitoring and evaluation of the ICT sector in Kyrgyzstan, together with the Public Information Center of the Kyrgyz Republic presidential administrative office and support from the Soros Foundation, have prepared a comparative analysis of the ICT sector conditions in Kyrgyzstan and other CIS countries. Some of the key parameters in widespread world practice were used in the analysis. To prepare the document data from the reports, "Review of ICT Sector Conditions in Kyrgyzstan - 2005" ("Expert", 2006), review of ICT development in the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2005, accounting documents of the Agency for Information and Communication of the Republic of Kazakhstan, "Results of development of communication and information sphere for 2005" and "Market Conditions of Telecommunication Services in Kazakhstan", and reports from the Ministry of Information and Communication of the Russian Federation and the International Telecommunications Union were used.

The report finds, among other things, that all of the Central Asian countries lag behind Russia in fixed telephone line (landline) density; percentage of cellphone users; and numbers of computers. Not surprisingly, Kazakhstan, the wealthiest of the Central Asian republics, has the most landlines and cell phone users and highest percentage of digital phone lines of the republics. However, Uzbekistan has seen a jump in digitalization in recent years, and some 66.2% of lines are digitized, almost as high a percentage as in Kazakhstan, which has 72.1% (These figures are from 2005.) Another interesting figure is that the level of cell phone penetration in Kyrgyzstan (10%) in 2005 was higher than in India and Pakistan (6.9% and 8.3%, respectively), countries whose rapidly growing youth population would presumably be adopting cell phones very quickly. One reason for this may be Kyrgyzstan's mountainous terrain, which makes the laying of phone lines difficult, so people who would ordinarily use landlines are instead turning to cell phones.

The complete text of the report is available in Russian from "Expert" at the following URL: http://www.expert.kg/content/ict/3

One of the most popular internet press service in Kyrgyzstan announced of reopening of its blog due to current political events in the country, mass public demonstrations requiring the earlier reelections of the president. The website cites the probability of blocking of access for foreign users of the agency services. Therefore the administration of website decided to reopen the blog at http://akipress_kgz.livejournal.com. This blog was open during the November demonstrations in Bishkek, where the foreign readers had an access to the main news line of AKIpress. This blog would contain the latest news concerning the political situation in Kyrgyzstan that would be published at their official site. This is a noteworthy pre-emptive measure that the information agency began to use to ensure the dissemination of the information to a wider public, especially outside of the country. Source: http://kg.akipress.org/_print.php?db=news&id=39085

Information touch screens --hardware-software units, created to organize information services for people in public places-- have appeared in the IT market in Kyrgyzstan. The kiosk's sensor screen is run by special technology, which allows it to react instantly to touch. Sensory information kiosks are able to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and do not demand special servicing.

The connecting of sensory kiosks to local and global networks of retail enterprises, services, tax and border terminals, government establishments, train stations, and airports offers the opportunity to organize a unified information space. The sensory kiosk can also present information about locations to buy goods and typical products for sale.

In addition, the kiosks can provide Internet access with the option to read and send e-mail. The kiosks can contain information about city cultural sites, addresses and locations of hotels, the whereabouts of the closest restaurants. The information kiosks may be placed at the Zhogorku Kenesh (the Kyrgyzstani Parliament), at information agencies, in mayoral offices, etc.

Source:Akipress

Comment:The touch screens are a good idea. It sounds like their initial use will be for e-government type information. It would be great to see the kiosks set up in other areas, especially outside the capital city, Bishkek.

KazakhTelecom has started a project to filter Internet traffic. The introduction of system, using equipment from Cisco and Arbor, will protect users of the data transmission network, Kazakhstan Online, from DoS (Denial of Service) and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. The system currently under construction is much smarter than usual firewalls and is capable of automatically determining harmful traffic and subsequently blocking it. The first stage of the project will be implemented in the cities of Almaty and Astana.
Comment:One has to wonder what KazakhTelecom has been using in the past to filter Kazakhstan Online's traffic --surely this can't be the first firewall they're implementing!
Source: http://www.cnews.ru/news/line/index.shtml?2007/04/04/244048

The Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Tajikistan has opted to construct its telecommunications transport network by means of attracting commercial investors. The deputy minister of transport and communications of Tajikistan said that the government developed for this purpose in 2004 the project, "Transport networks of telecommunications in the Republic of Tajikistan", at a cost of $20-25 million. The first two phases of the given project (the creation of a transport network throughout the capital, Dushanbe, and the creation of a network connecting regions of the country to the capital) are already completed and were carried out by the national telecom provider TajikTelecom. In the third and final phase, Tajikistan will be connected with its neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, China and Uzbekistan. According to the deputy minister, during the completion of this third phase TajikTelecom will involve local investors, i.e., the telecommunication companies.
Source: cnews.ru

The Russian mobile phone provider Vimpelcom has declared the start of commercial operations of a 3.5G cellular network in Tajikistan. The company emphasizes that the Central Asian republic is within adequate range for the new services to work and will invest $100 million over the next five-six years to provide service all throughout Tajikistan. Vimpelcom plans to introduce 3.5G services in Russia after it receives licenses to work on third generation networks there.

Comment: It's interesting that Vimpelcom has chosen Tajikistan for introducing its next-generation network. This is presumably due to the fact that Tajikistan's open telecom market makes it attractive to foreign investment, whereas in Vimpelcom's own more bureaucratic Russia, government regulation impedes the rollout. (See article above)

Source:cnews.ru

Alcatel-Lucent has declared successful the first stage of a project constructing an NGN (Next Generation Network) IP-network for Kazakhtelecom in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Kazakhtelecom, the leading operator of fixed-line communications in Kazakhstan, is using the new network for granting the latest services of voice transfer and data to corporate clients and other residents of Astana. The complete article is available in Russian from cnews.ru at the following URL: http://www.cnews.ru/news/line/index.shtml?2007/03/29/242964.

The article summarizes the Internet expansion trends in Turkmenistan under late president Niyazov and current president Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov providing details and statistics from various sources. Turkmenistan is belatedly giving its population a chance to interact with their peers worldwide. On February 14 Berdimukhamedov reiterated that the Internet would be available to all Turkmen citizens and promised to ease the country’s restrictive Internet policies. On Feb 16th, when two new Internet cafes opened in Ashgabat, Berdimukhamedov met with Alexei Tikhomirov, head of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The Internet was high on the agenda, as both sides discussed further developing information-communication technologies in Turkmenistan. But, even with the new government facilities Internet access remains a major problem for aspiring Turkmen web surfers. Access currently costs more than $4 an hour, a princely sum in a country with an estimated 60% unemployment rate and an average annual income of $1,340 (CIA World Factbook 2007). In 2005 the United Nations estimated that 44% of Turkmenistan’s population lived on less than $2 per day; prevailing rates would therefore deny Internet access to all but a privileged, wealthy few (United Nations IRIN, September 5, 2005). John C. K. Daly, The Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, Volume 4, Issue 64, April 2, 2007 Link to source: http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2372069