The European Commission published on its website the final report on results of 2 years work of the project "Monitoring of Russia and Ukraine (priority 1) and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Moldova (priority 2): Telecommunications and the Information Society".

The study aimed to give an overview of the development of telecommunications and the information society in eight above. These countries have engaged in varying policies with regard to electronic communications and the information society, producing markets that, while similar, have fundamental differences. These differences include the level of competition in the telecommunications market, the degree of privatisation, and the extent to which online retail and service provision are supported by a comprehensive legislative framework.

The study covers a geographically and politically diverse set of countries that share a common history as former members of the Soviet Union. The roll-out of information society services is made difficult by low income levels, which puts both equipment and services beyond the reach of many citizens. These difficulties are further exacerbated by weak fixed line infrastructure and low levels of access (particularly in rural areas) to fixed line networks.

The study looks at the electronic communications and information society sector in the eight countries from three key angles :

• The electronic communications sector (looking in particular at the regulatory framework supporting competition in the sector, as well as market development), and the legislative framework surrounding electronic service provision
• The services available, both commercial and governmental, which give an indication both of the development of the market and the extent to which citizens have compelling reasons to become “connected” to the information society
• The level of use of available services.

During the project’s realization four intermediate reports were prepared, showing with half-yearly intervals the changes in the countries under consideration in the proposed tendencies.

Organization, which supervised the project under terms of contract with the European Commission, was the international consulting company Political Intelligence, coordination of work with experts was fulfilled by Internews Europe.

Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of IIS Board of Directors, and Sergei Shaposhnik, Head of Directorate on Information Society Development Monitoring of IIS, worked as experts in the project from the Russian party.