MOSCOW, August 8 (Itar-Tass) - The number of Russian fast broadband Internet subscribers in the private sector in the first six months of 2013 has exceeded 26 million, the service penetration has approached 48%, according to a report of iKS-Consulting released on Thursday.

In six federal districts the penetration level is 43% to 56%. “The lowest penetration level in the Southern Federal District can be explained by a high share of rural population, as well as by the service’s low penetration in a number of North Caucasus republics,” according to experts.

Rostelecom, ER-Telecom, VimpelCom, MTS and TTK have the largest number of subscribers. Rostelecom is leading in the number of new subscriptions. The subscriber growth over this period, depending on the operators, accounted for 4% to 36%.

Moscow’s market year-on-year growth has reached 9%, and the service penetration has reached 85%. Rostelecom has also shown the largest subscriber growth (29%) on the Moscow market. MTS has also had substantial progress on the Moscow market. The company’s subscriber growth is determined above all by the introduction of GPON technology.