Overall, the telecom market in this predominantly rural country is relatively small but has been trying boldly to expand in recent years.

[4] The satellite will cover Europe and significant part of Asian countries and Africa and will have transmission for TV, radio broadcasting and the internet.

Due to lack of competition, BCTI continued to operate without investing much to cover rural areas.

The Mobile phone sector started to improve rapidly after the expiration of company's exclusive license in 2004.

The Russian mobile phone operator MTS acquired BCTI[7] and state-owned communication company TurkmenTelekom opened a new subsidiary, Altyn Asyr.

[10] As a result of this development, TurkmenTelecom started offering an access to the higher speed Internet with ADSL to the consumers in Turkmenistan.

Surveillance is significant, and the few citizens who benefit from access to the Internet are closely monitored by state agencies.

Moreover, ordinary citizens have no access to the World Wide Web, and instead are limited to the use of the Turkmenet, an online community in Turkmen language, but effectively a censored version of the Internet.

[17] An analog TV signal feed of 5 national channels is receivable over-the-air in all living areas across the country.

List of broadcast stations: Previously, all 7 of the national channels were aired on the Yamal satellites for an international audience.