Number of internet outlets at Russian Post Offices soars in 2002

The number of public access Internet outlets at Russian post offices stood at 6,600 at the beginning of the year, up from a little over 1,000 at the beginning of 2002, Ilya Genkin, a representative of the postal service department in Russia’s Communications and IT Ministry, said Tuesday. He was speaking at a conference on high technologies in the Russian postal service.

He said the federal postal service has been implementing the project, named Kiberpocht@ (Cyberpost), mainly using its own funds as well as involving some unspecified leasing companies. He did not provide any details.

Genkin also said that it was one of the most socially important projects that the federal postal service is developing.

He said that last December public access Internet outlets served over 200,000 customers around Russia.

The project, which was launched on August 1, 2001, envisages that Internet outlets will be set up in all of Russia’s 40,000 post offices.

According to earlier estimates, the number of regular Internet users in Russia was projected to climb to eight million by the end of last year from 4.3 million as of end-2001.