“The project ‘Locals Provided with Information’ will start on Monday, November 27 by the Information, Communication and Technology Authority,” said a press release from authority officials Monday

“It is planned to complete an installation of multi-channel television broadcast land line equipment within this month in 14 soums and 31 soums (all soums) of Bayan-Ulgii and Uvs provinces respectively where locals now can receive 4 broadcasting channels including UBS, TV5, TV9 and MN25 no matter what capacity their antenna has.”

The Government of Mongolia has passed the project ‘Locals Provided with Information’ in February and has assigned the Information, Communication and Technology Authority (ICTA) to implement the project.

“The Government is giving MNT 2.1 billion for the project based on the decision made on February 13,” said J. Zorigtbaatar, the officer responsible for radio, television and communication of the ICTA.

“We had only one channel of the analog system through satellite that our country paid USD $1.0 million yearly until this year. Even if the capacity was increased to broadcasting four more channels of UBS, TV5, TV9 and MN25 for the whole country some local households could not receive the channels they wanted because the equipment which receives incoming signals from the satellite and delivers it to the viewers was old,” said the press release.

U. Domishk, a resident of Bayan-Ulgii province told MonInfo, “We have only one channel MNTV. And not everyone is capable to pay MNT 2,500 per month for cable television.”

One of the flagship objectives of the government’s program ‘Electronic Mongolia’ is to make ICTA as mass implementer in all social sectors.

“We are aiming to complete the installation of the equipment in every soum of Mongolia as soon as possible. Sansar Cable television was selected as a supplier by a tender announced earlier,” said Zorigtbaatar.

ICTA, and the Mongolian Government are running a policy to make local areas more capable to receive information.

“It is good that we are going to have access to four more Mongolian channels for free,” said Domishk.