“The Runet Evolution Rating”, the new issue of the CC’s analytical Bulletin, has come out. This issue highlights main development trends and indices of the Internet in Russia in 2010.
For example, the Coordination Center recommends consider the number of daily Internet visitors as the principal indicator of the Runet development (already 69% of users go on-line on a daily basis). In preceding years, all researchers would focus on the monthly indices. At the same time, the number of users who visit the Web from home is growing from quarter to quarter – by the late 2010 their number had gone up to 85%.
Another interesting conclusion stems from the analysis of the Internet usage by various strata of population: The Internet is no longer a “luxury item” and the measure of its user’s status. Rather, it has grown into a bare necessity. The share of Internet users “who can afford food and clothing but fall short of buying major home appliances” has been steadily on the rise (44% in 2010 against 40% in 2009). Thus, the Internet turns into a «third necessity”, following food and clothing.
Two-thirds of Russian Internet users are individuals under 34. The most conservative group is individuals aged over 55 years, of which barely 8% goes on-line. However, this index is set for a slow growth, which can be ascribed to the ongoing computer literacy Internet training programs (many of which are developed by MRK “Svyazinvest”) and to the ageing of the 45-54-year group in which the Internet penetration rate already acounts for 30%.
The third section of the bulletin addresses the Runet 2010 milestone- that is, the launch of ccTLD .РФ. It is expected that by the very end of the year the number of domain names in ccTLD .РФ will have reached 700, 000. It took .РФ just a month and a half to demonstrate such impressive results. Because of such a vigorous growth ccTLD .РФ has already ranked 16th among top-level national domains in Europe.
Against the background of the rise of the Internet penetration rate and its gradual transformation from an extra necessity into a bare one, the Internet traffic growth rate is on the upsurge. For instance, for 9 months 2010 Russian users transmitted 6.1 exabyte (6.1 trillion megabyte) of information. This is already 2.1- fold greater vis-a-vis the 2009 annual index. Such a growth in traffic can safely be called a dramatic one: the conflict between the Internet providers and content providers both in Russia and across the globe is on the rise. Content-providers increasingly download channels with “heavy content”. Against this background the need for cost sharing between Internet providers and content providers has become increasingly evident.
