Influence of telecommunications on economic development of regions in western and eastern Russia

The article examines the contribution of telecommunication technologies to the development of the regional economy. Particular attention is paid to the specifics of the western and eastern regions of Russia. The author analyze the impact of broadband Internet access and mobile communications on the gross regional product in the eastern and western regions of the Russian Federation. As part of the review, the works of foreign scientists were studied, who considered the impact of telecommunications on the economic performance of developing and developed countries, and the experience of domestic researchers was also taken into account. In the course of the work, the authors identified the differences between the models in the western and eastern parts of Russia in terms of the importance of factors of the number of active users of fixed access to the Internet, the number of mobile Internet users and the share of organizations with their own servers and their impact on the gross regional product. The conclusion is made about the differences in the conditions for the functioning of the economic system in the regions of the eastern and western parts of Russia.