Neither national security agencies, nor TV broadcasters from RTRS were satisfied with Andrey Beskorovainy as the head of the Federal Communications Agency (Rossvyaz).
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Rossvyaz Head Vacated Frequency
// Andrey Beskorovainy leaves voluntarily
A key official of Russia’s administration of communications, head of the Federal Communications Agency (Rossvyaz) Andrey Beskorovainy, handed in a letter of voluntary resignation. Rossvyaz distributes frequencies, and thus is often criticized. Communication experts think that the opponents of Russia’s Ministry of Information and Communications in national security structures and TV broadcasting monopoly RTRS contributed to Beskorovainy’s resignation.
Sources in the Ministry of Information and Communications confirmed that Andrey Beskorovainy had handed in a letter of voluntary resignation. Deputy Minister of IT and communications Boris Antonyuk refused to comment on the resignation yesterday. Beskorovainy’s advisor Pavel Morozov did not disprove the information. A high-placed source in communications administration told Kommersant that Beskorovainy “leaves voluntarily, due to health problems”, and that “all other theories, suggested by some structures, are absolutely untenable”. Beskorovainy himself was unavailable yesterday, his cell phone did not respond.
A source in Russia’s TV broadcasting monopoly RTRS suggested the following version of events which preceded the resignation. RTRS and the Ministry of Information and Communications have been long competing for the right to head the program of digitizing Russian TV. The program’s budget will reach $4 billion, the money will be taken from the state budget in the course of 6 years. Inter-ministry committee, headed by First Deputy Premier Dmitry Medvedev, was organized in May 2006 to solve the conflict.
Rossvyaz called RTRS’s theory absurd. Pavel Morozov said that “Rossvyaz has no obstacles for issuing permissions for using frequencies when creating the experiment zones of digital TV”. Rossvyaz said that nearly 10 such permissions have been issued. The only full-value license for digital TV broadcasting was issued last year to Volgatelekom (the broadcasting began in December 2005).
Some experts believe that Beskorovainy’s resignation might be linked not only to the conflict between communications administration and RTRS. They recall the conflict between Rossvyaz and national security agencies. The conflict became apparent during the session of the State Committee on Radio Frequencies in October 2006. Communications administration managed to win a half-victory then. It got the permission to use frequencies for creating the 3G cell network. The Ministry of Defense took it as an offense.
Experts cannot say yet how Beskorovainy’s resignation will affect Russia’s IT market. Alexander Izosimov, Vympelkom’s director general, thinks that the resignation will hardly change anything for his company: “I don’t think that Beskorovainy bears personal responsibility for the situation. It is rather a united stand of communications administration”.
Valery Kodachigov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 23, 2006
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