Our Approach
PJSC Rostelecom is Russia’s largest provider of digital services and solutions operating across all market segments and covering millions of households, public and private entities.
In March 2018, Rostelecom’s Board of Directors approved the Company’s new 5‑year development strategy. Rostelecom has already come a long way to transform from a telephony provider into a digital services provider. The new strategy is designed to reinforce Rostelecom’s status as a digital and IT company.
In 2018, 55% of the Company’s revenue was generated by digital and content services, including high-speed internet access, Pay TV, cloud, and data centre services, cyber security, etc. The Company is focused on high-powered growth in the segments of new digital services for both retail customers, and business and government customers. We have built teams, centres of excellence, and product development offices in such new areas as biometrics, cyber security, cloud solutions, the Internet of Things, Smart City, Smart Home, etc.
Rostelecom is expanding the ecosystem of digital services for households, which also includes Smart Home solutions, online education services, telemedicine technology, etc.
Rostelecom is traditionally the operator of choice for telecommunications and IT services for government authorities and corporate users at all levels. Over 1.0 million entities use our high-speed internet access and VPN services. Rostelecom offers turnkey innovative solutions for e‑government systems, cyber security, data centres, cloud computing, biometrics, healthcare, education, and utilities.
The Company has already made a huge step towards digitalisation: we have expanded and improved our product offerings and entered new markets by launching a biometric platform, and we are developing digital solutions for healthcare and education and enhancing our cyber security system. Today, we do not simply create products and services — we offer positive experiences, open up opportunities to get education and healthcare services, and give people a sense of security and save them time by reducing bureaucracy. We help customers of any size to grow their business, and help the government reach out to the people.»
Mikhail Oseevsky, President of PJSC Rostelecom
We implement our programmes and projects in close alignment with government-sponsored and federal programmes. One example is our active involvement in the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation national programme.
As part of the universal service reform, the Company is focused on the Bridging the Digital Divide (BDD) project bringing affordable telecoms services to people in rural areas, particularly in remote and hard-to-access locations. Due to the infrastructure built by the Company, residents of rural areas can now get the most from the internet-based digital technologies and have access to online public, healthcare, and education services to the same standards as their urban counterparts.
As at the end of 2018, 8,000 access points (57% of the target as per the project plan) were deployed within the BDD project. In 2017, the Company made internet access available free of charge at its Wi-Fi access points installed within the BDD project. Also in 2018, the Company zeroed out the rates for local and intra-zone calls from universal payphones, so residents can now call any landline numbers within their region completely free of charge.
By taking part in the government-sponsored programmes and implementing own projects, the Company makes its contribution to the UN SDGs. Specifically, our participation in the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation national programme and the implementation of the BDD project simultaneously contribute to as many as seven Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 1: No Poverty; Goal 3 Good Health and Well-Being; Goal 4: Quality Education; Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities; and Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Our Bridging the Digital Divide project is very much aligned with the UN SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. Multiple other services and platforms offered by Rostelecom are also contributing to the UN SDGs.
All our products and services are thoroughly assessed for any potential negative impacts on the environment or local communities. If any such impact is identified, the Company makes every effort to eliminate or minimise it.
| Programmes | 4 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Economy of the Russian Federation |  | | | | | |
| Ensuring the operation of the e‑government infrastructure | | | | | ||
| Unified Public and Municipal Services Portal | | | | | ||
| Integrated Identification and Authentication System | | | | |||
| Unified System of Interdepartmental Electronic Cooperation | | | | |||
| Unified Biometric System | | | | |||
| Watch the Exam — video surveillance during the Unified State Exam (USE) | | | | |||
| National Cloud Platform | | | | | ||
| Universal Service Obligation and Bridging the Digital Divide | | | | | | |
| Smart City | | | | |||
| RT.Health | | |||||
| Telephony | | | | |||
| Services for the Great Patriotic War (WWII) veterans | | |||||
| Cyber security | | | ||||
| Higher quality of services | | | | | |
The largest internet provider in Russia
Rostelecom is the largest operator of ultrafast broadband for households, business, and government customers. As at the end of 2018, the Company provided internet connectivity to 12 million households across the country and over 1 million commercial and government entities. In this way, we are the largest provider of access to online and digital services for Russian citizens and companies, bringing them all associated benefits and opportunities.
In 2017, Rostelecom completed an ambitious programme for the deployment of fibre access networks (GPON, FTTx), reaching 35 million households across Russia. Between 2012 and 2017, we connected over 19 million households to fibre, in some years covering as many as 5 to 6 million households per year by fibre broadband networks.
This effort provided a solid technical platform to drive our business growth for years to come, as well as maintain our leadership in the Russian market not only in the ultrafast broadband segment, but also in IPTV. Our current focus is on increasing capacity utilisation for the deployed fibre networks and expand our bundled offerings (selling users connectivity to activate and use two or more services simultaneously), which improves the loyalty of the subscriber base and increases customer retention.
The growth in fibre networks has recently been driven by government-sponsored infrastructure projects (bridging the digital divide, internet connectivity for hospitals and schools, deployment of submarine FOCLs to connect Magadan, Kamchatka, and the Kuril Islands, etc.), which involve the construction of hundreds of thousands of kilometres of new high-speed fibre lines. This increases data speeds available to customers across all segments in remote and sparsely populated areas.
Russia’s largest operator of cable TV and interactive TV networks
Rostelecom is the largest operator of cable TV and interactive TV networks in the Russian market by subscriber base and revenue. Over 10 million households across the country benefit from the Company’s services (the Company passed this milestone in 2018).
More than 5.3 million households use our unique nationwide service — Interactive TV (IPTV). This is a multimedia entertainment centre for the whole family, which adapts to the tastes and preferences of the user.
Rostelecom aims to consolidate, sort and bundle the most interesting TV and video content, which can then be delivered, regardless of the distribution environment, to any screen capable of playing video.
The Company offers a maximum range of digital technologies for accessing content. The Multiscreen service enables watching Rostelecom’s TV and video content on absolutely any screen — be it a TV (via a regular set-top box, OTT set-top box, or a Smart TV application), or using a desktop, laptop (via a video portal), tablet or a smartphone (via a mobile application). Multiscreen integrates all devices into a single space for viewing content: you can start watching a movie on one device and then continue on any other from where you stopped watching. Up to five different devices can be linked to Multiscreen, i.e. devices of all family members.
Through its Video Rental service, Rostelecom offers a selection of over 250 different TV channels and about 20 thousand films and episodes of TV series. Interactive TV supports a maximum range of extra features such as an on-screen TV guide, Freeview (pause, rewind, programme archive), Parental Control (restricting children’s access to content based on age labelling), on-screen information services, Karaoke, and others.
The Company places a particular emphasis on producing and offering high-quality content for children and young people. In 2018, the Company, together with the children’s TV channel TiJi and the Art, Science and Sport Charity Foundation, for the first time demonstrated content with audio description, enabling visually impaired and blind people to «watch» videos. The audio description technology helps visually impaired viewers better understand what is happening on the screen. Dialogues of the characters are accompanied by an additional audio track which conveys the details of the «picture» — objects, actions and phenomena a viewer needs to know to fully understand the plot.
Rostelecom also offers turnkey TV products for corporate customers, e.g. user-friendly integrated solutions for the HoReCa industry.