Criteria for the development of telecommunication services

The article deals with the problem of regional development, i.e. development of criteria for providing telecommunication services. The existing methodologies for assessing the development of telecommunications are not objectively connected with income or with a level of business needs for services. They do not reflect the service state in constituent entities of the Russian Federation and does not allow for quantitative evaluation of the development. The lack of a unified vision in case of fragmented provision of services by four or five large operators does not allow properly planning of business development. The paper presents the comparative dynamics of macroeconomic indicators of income from telecommunication services to legal entities and persons in comparison with economic indicators in Russia. For comparability of consumption levels two criteria are introduced: “a share of services in average per capita income of the population” and “a share of services to legal entities in the gross regional product.” This enables one to make comparisons, on the basis of which it’s possible to determine a place of application of the financial efforts and growth areas of specific types of telecommunication services in the Russian Federation and the constituent entities. The author offers a methodological approach, which is characterized by objective indicators of consumption of services provided in the statistical reports of Rosstat and the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, tools for assessing the economic efficiency on the basis of technical availability of telecommunication devices for the growth of revenue from services.