Russia – 20 Million Internet Users, and More Under Way

RIA Novosti reports that 42% of Moscow residents are connected to the Internet, against, say, 59%, overall in the US. The number of Internet connections in Russia keeps growing, and with 14% of Russians online already, there are 20 million Internet users in the country today.

Having gained access to the Web, Russians are quick to capture interest in the latest online leisure activities, reaching far beyond pure ICQ and e-mail usage, Russians have taken to downloading videos and music, online gaming, creating personal WebPages, and keeping Online diaries.

With the first Russian domain created back in 1990, the Ru-net has seen tremendous change in the following 16 years. The latest Russian uplift in online presence was achieved thanks to the introduction of ADSL, and the replacement of good-old infrastructure of dial-up modems, leading to cheaper connections and much faster downloading.

What’s next? Well, over 50% of Moscow and St. Petersburg residents are hooked to online television. For Russia, the annual ICT ‘growth’ is at steady 15-20%, and analysts expect that by 2006, two and a half million more Russians will ‘get connected’ to the Web.