{"id":7871,"date":"2025-09-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/120-mbps-on-a-road-in-jalal-abad\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T03:00:00","slug":"120-mbps-on-a-road-in-jalal-abad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/120-mbps-on-a-road-in-jalal-abad\/","title":{"rendered":"120 Mbps on a Road in Jalal-Abad: What the Coverage Map Doesn’t Show"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

When connectivity is discussed in policy terms, it is usually the availability of infrastructure that gets framed as the challenge \u2014 the towers, the cables, the spectrum, the fibre runs, the question of whether a signal exists in a given valley at all. From inside Kyrgyzstan, in 2024, that framing has stopped describing the actual situation. Mobile coverage is, in most of the country, no longer the limit. The limit is what gets done with the connection that already exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One observation, from a road in southern Kyrgyzstan, makes the point more directly than the aggregate figures do. On the route between Tash-Kumyr and Kerben<\/strong>, in Jalal-Abad oblast<\/strong>, in October 2024<\/strong>, a few stretches of road returned download speeds of around 120 Mbps<\/strong> on the MEGA network when measured against both fast.com<\/em> and Speedtest by Ookla<\/em>. This was not part of a structured testing campaign. It was a one-off check during travel \u2014 done out of curiosity rather than methodology. For a remote rural road in a high-mountain southern region, in that month, the result was incredibly good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kind of reading, in that kind of place, sits awkwardly with most of the assumptions the connectivity story usually carries. The country has built, by any reasonable regional measure, a strong mobile network. Coverage reaches almost every populated settlement. Pricing is among the lowest in the world. Speeds in rural areas are often faster than in Bishkek. And yet much of the work that needs a stable connection \u2014 administrative tasks, document handling, video calls between agencies, school and clinic systems \u2014 still depends on a fixed line that, in most of the country, isn’t there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the coverage map actually means<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mobile networks reach 99% of Kyrgyzstan’s 2,227 populated settlements<\/strong>. The three operators \u2014 MEGA (state-owned), Nur Telecom \/ O! (Visor Holding, Kazakhstan), and Sky Mobile \/ Beeline (VEON) \u2014 split the market roughly evenly, and between them they have closed almost the entire physical access gap. As of mid-2024, active mobile subscriptions sit above 7.8 million \u2014 more than the population, because many users carry two SIMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 22 settlements still without coverage<\/strong> are scattered across high-altitude mountain valleys. They are not waiting for a tower. They are waiting for electricity. Without a stable power source, the equipment cannot run; without the equipment, no operator extends a signal. This is a practical limit of terrestrial deployment, not a gap that more telecom investment will close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSETTLEMENT COVERAGE \u2014 KYRGYZSTAN, Q2 2024<\/span>\n
\n
<\/div>\n 2,205 of 2,227 settlements \u00b7 2G\/3G\/4G<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n 22 settlements off-grid \u00b7 electricity, not signal<\/span>\n<\/div>\nKG Labs Intelligence<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Faster in the south than in Bishkek<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the more counter-intuitive patterns visible from the field is that mobile speeds in rural areas are often higher<\/em> than in the capital. Repeated readings put 4G downloads in the range of 90\u2013120 Mbps in rural areas<\/strong> against 30\u201360 Mbps in congested parts of Bishkek and central Osh<\/strong>. The reason is straightforward: where fewer devices share a tower, each device gets more of its capacity. In urban centres, the same infrastructure carries a much higher density of simultaneous users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n4G DOWNLOAD SPEED \u2014 DECA FIELD TESTING, 2024<\/span>\n
Rural areas<\/span><\/span>90\u2013120 Mbps<\/span><\/div>\n
Urban centres (Bishkek, central Osh)<\/span><\/span>30\u201360 Mbps<\/span><\/div>\nKG Labs Intelligence<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Read across enough of these moments, the rural digital divide in Kyrgyzstan looks less like an access<\/em> gap and more like a usage<\/em> gap. Signal exists. Speed is, in many cases, better than in the capital. What is uneven is what people do with the connection: which services are available in Kyrgyz or Russian and worth using, which institutions have moved their workflows online, and which households can afford devices and applications that match what the network can carry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What 120 Mbps actually enables<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The number on a speed test screen is easy to print and easy to ignore. It is more useful read against the kind of work it makes possible. At 120 Mbps download on a single device<\/strong>, on a stretch of road in Jalal-Abad, the connection comfortably handles services that, ten years ago, would have been considered urban-only or institutional:<\/p>\n\n\n\n