By 2010 half of Russian citizens will have personal computers and access to the Internet, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said, citing forecasts.

“We hope the market will develop in a way that would make 50% of Russian citizens owners of personal computers with access to the Internet by 2010. That would be impressive progress,” Ivanov told the press at a joint press briefing with Information Technology and Communications Minister Leonid Reyman.

“By 2015 not a single populated area in this country must remain without an infrastructure for setting up stationary telephone lines, cell phone facilities and the Internet,” said Ivanov.

“Again, I mean each and every populated area, irrespective of its economic ‘weight’ and population, so each family will have an opportunity to have a telephone,” he said.

“The people’s telephone idea must finally be implemented. We must understand that we are to accomplish an information revolution,”

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