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: Telecommunications In Belarus
Famous quotes containing the words telephone and/or system:
“A woman spent all Christmas Day in a telephone box without ringing anyone. If someone comes to phone, she leaves the box, then resumes her place afterwards. No one calls her either, but from a window in the street, someone watched her all day, no doubt since they had nothing better to do. The Christmas syndrome.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)