Telephone System
Telephone lines in use: 3,9741 million (2011)
Mobile/cellular: 10,3 million (2011)
The Ministry of Telecommunications controls all telecommunications originating within the country through its carrier unitary enterprise, Beltelecom, which is controlled as a monopoly. The phone calling code for Belarus is +375.
Belarus has 4 GSM operators (TM velcom, MTS, life and Diallog), the NMT-450 and CDMA-2000 operator. Mobile operators are experiencing rapid growth. Minsk has a digital metropolitan network; waiting lists for telephones are long; fixed line penetration is improving although rural areas continue to be undeserved; intercity - Belarus has developed fibre-optic backbone system presently serving at least 13 major cities (1998); Belarus's fibre optics form synchronous digital hierarchy rings through other countries' systems; an inadequate analogue system remains operational.
Belarus is a member of the Trans-European Line (TEL), Trans-Asia-Europe Fibre-Optic Line (TAE) and has access to the Trans-Siberia Line (TSL); three fibre-optic segments provide connectivity to Latvia, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine; worldwide service is available to Belarus through this infrastructure; additional analogue lines to Russia; Intelsat, Eutelsat, and Intersputnik earth stations
Read more about this topic: Communications In Belarus
Famous quotes containing the words telephone and/or system:
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)