Turkestan becomes the first Kazakh city to retire ADSL copper lines

Turkestan has become the first city in Kazakhstan to switch off ADSL copper lines entirely and move to fibre, the digital ministry said in a 22 October statement on a regional meeting with telecom operators.

The ministry also said the city was first in the country to close every coverage gap, or "white spot", identified in 2024. Its statement describes fibre as the most advanced and reliable data transmission technology in use today. It gives no subscriber count for the copper switch-off and no date for the final disconnections.

The statement came from a meeting in Turkestan region on the national "Accessible Internet" project, attended by ministry officials and operators. The region has 801 settlements, made up of seven cities and 794 villages.

Backbone fibre at 408 of 794 villages

The ministry said backbone fibre-optic lines now reach 408 of the region's villages. It expects that number to rise to 570 by the end of 2026 and to 778 by 2027. Set against the 794 villages the ministry lists, the 2027 figure would leave 16 villages without a backbone connection, and the ministry's statement does not say how they would be served.

On those figures, backbone fibre covers about 51 per cent of the region's villages today, would reach about 72 per cent by the end of this year and about 98 per cent in 2027. The ministry did not publish that arithmetic itself, and it does not say how many households in each village can use the lines. A backbone connection brings fibre to a village, not necessarily to each home.

The step from 408 to 570 means 162 more villages in roughly two months, on the ministry's timetable. The step to 778 in 2027 adds another 208. The statement gives no breakdown by operator or by month.

A public-sector fibre build with Kazakhtelecom

A separate build under an investment agreement with Kazakhtelecom is laying fibre to public and budget-funded organisations. The ministry said the project will connect 649 such organisations at 372 points over 2,638.1 km of planned lines, of which 852.2 km, or 32 per cent, has been laid. Work covers 12 districts of the region.

The ministry listed 267 schools, 257 medical institutions and rural first-aid posts, and 80 district administrations among the sites, along with police, border, customs and emergency service facilities. A report by Baq.kz on the same meeting repeated these figures.

Kazakhtelecom has been moving copper subscribers in the region to fibre under its SWAP network modernisation programme. In August, KazNews reported that the company would transfer 13,105 subscribers in Turkestan region from copper to fibre over two years, and that technicians had already switched the first 827 customers. The report cited the town of Lenger in Tolebi district, where 416 fibre ports had been built, 52 subscribers were connected and 234 families in all were to be switched to fibre.

Mobile networks and the remaining gaps

On mobile, the ministry said 4G is available in 702 settlements and is planned to reach 772 by 2030. The older 3G standard still runs in 39 villages and is due to be switched off completely by 2028. A total of 138 5G base stations have been installed in the region.

Of 95 problem locations identified earlier in the region, 77 (81 per cent) have been resolved, and work is under way at the other 18 (19 per cent). Turkestan city is therefore ahead of the region as a whole on coverage gaps, a point the Baq.kz report also made.

Roads and border crossings come later. Under an agreement with Transtelecom, survey work and coordinates for five antenna-mast structures along key highways are complete, with construction planned for 2027. Seven border crossing points, named in the statement as B. Konysbayev, Atameken, Tselinny, Kaplanbek, Syrdariya, Kazygurt and Zhibek Zholy, are to get quality mobile and internet service by 2027, once masts and power supply are in place. Four tourist sites, Sauran, the Ukasha Ata shrine, the Tuttybulak waterfall and the Akmeshit cave, are to be connected by 2028.

The Turkestan figures sit within a national programme with a large gap to close this year. In early October the government reported that 370 of 1,600 planned villages had been connected nationwide by early October. The region is also the largest site of the World Bank-funded rural broadband project, which pays operators to bring fibre to homes, a separate effort that the ministry covered the same day in its own statement. An earlier piece explained the loan and its matching grants.

The copper statement is a milestone for one city rather than a measure of the region. The ministry gives a clear end state for backbone fibre, 778 of 794 villages by 2027, and it names 2028 as the year 3G ends. Readers tracking delivery have three numbers to check against the next ministry update: 570 villages by the end of 2026, 852.2 km of public-sector fibre laid out of 2,638.1 km, and the 18 mobile locations still open.