Government to curtail Beltelcom’s monopoly on international traffic routing this year

According to an unconfirmed report from business news agency Prime, the government of Belarus is looking to remove state-owned PTO Beltelecom’s monopoly on routing international internet traffic before the end of this year. To this end, the state has asked the Ministry of Communications and Informatisation (MoCI) to ensure its request is carried out. In March this year communications minister Nikolai Pantelei said the MoCI had postponed a tender for permission to establish network interconnection with foreign operators until 2012, to give it time to analyse the market. Pantelei’s agency had initially planned to hold a tender in January, but cancelled it due to a lack of interest. As it stands, Beltelecom is the sole Belarusian telco holding rights to establish network connections with international operators and to provide international internet traffic routing.