Director of Network Infrastructure Development at Russian

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Konstantin Kolesov, Head of Strategic Development of Data Transfer at PJSC VimpelCom (trade mark - Beeline), spoke about this at the MSK-IX Peering Forum. He also noted that in case of problems in relations with Western partners, it is possible to reorient to the East, but this will be more expensive.

"International traffic has jamaica whatsapp number database behaved interestingly. In 2022, it fell sharply. But in 2023, there was a sharp turnaround. Traffic is growing, and this creates a load and a need for international channels. The growth is mainly due to Telegram and hosting platforms. We receive this traffic abroad. Of course, some problems with international companies remain, which is why there is a risk for international traffic. It seems that Russian operators have not been disconnected from the global Internet, but it has become more difficult to work. In principle, global traffic can be taken not only from Europe. It is the same everywhere. It can be taken from Japan, Hong Kong, the USA, etc., but it is expensive. It is faster and cheaper from Europe, 90% of traffic still comes from there. A small share goes from Japan to the Far East. Nevertheless, operators are developing alternative routes: someone is completing a cable system, someone is expanding a border crossing, someone is building inter-operator relations," explained Konstantin Kolesov.

IT multinational Yandex Alexey Sokolov is confident that there is no suitable content for Russia in the East: "Going East is a road to nowhere. If life turns out so that Tier-1 operators block us in Europe, they will do the same in Hong Kong. Therefore, if we have reached Hong Kong, this does not mean that we have gained access to the Internet. Tier-1 operators will block there just like in Europe. You might think that we will easily find a replacement in other Eastern countries. We are used to Chinese machines, so we will do something with the Internet. But there is another problem there. People go to the Internet for content, for services. So in the East, there is no import substitution for us in content. It is all in unfriendly jurisdictions. Therefore, even if we make a thick channel in Hong Kong, install equipment there, protect ourselves from being blocked in Europe, we will not solve the problem. There is no content in the East, and that is the whole problem."

However, telecom market experts disagree with the statistics and believe that there was no sharp decline or rise in traffic. Moreover, according to them, there will be no problems with the inflow of Western traffic in the future.

A representative of the press service of JSC TransTeleCom (TTK) noted that the company's specialists do not see any obstacles to the flow of traffic from Europe: "TransTeleCom did not observe a noticeable drop in 2022. At the same time, we see an obvious increase in traffic in 2023 - both absolute and as a share of the total traffic. The reasons for this can be associated with the lack of modernization of the Google Global Cache and Akamai servers, which leads to an increase in traffic at the junctions with them in Europe. We also do not see any prerequisites for the cessation of Western traffic flow to the Russian Federation. On the contrary, we note that the willingness of Western partners to cooperate is somewhat higher than in 2022, when difficulties in working with them actually took place."

Rostelecom PJSC specialists cannot confirm a sharp drop in traffic in 2022. "There was a slight decrease, barely exceeding the seasonal one. Accordingly, there is no sharp growth in 2023 - traffic is growing at approximately an annual rate. After all, it is not countries that create content, but content owners who install caching servers in different countries, including Asian ones. Therefore, diversification of routes through Asian countries would be useful," noted a representative of the Rostelecom PJSC press service.

The press service of TransTeleCom assured that the technical possibility of reorienting traffic from the Asian direction exists: "Such a possibility exists. But at the same time, the share of unique Asian traffic that TransTeleCom specifically purchases does not exceed 5% of the total volume of our international traffic."