Rostelecom slims down for financial and digital gains With property tax wiping 10% of its profits and 70% of its equipment room space vacant, find out how Russia's Rostelecom slimmed down its assets and spatial footprint to go digital. By Wang Hui Digitalization isn’t free Traditional CT equipment rooms no longer meet operators’ ICT service development needs. With high maintenance costs further hindering digital transformation, more carriers are opting to reconstruct equipment rooms and monetize undervalued sites to lower OPEX and drive up revenues. Rostelecom’s Digitization Strategy 2020 set out its aim to increase the percentage of its income from digital services to 60 percent in 2020, up from 40 percent in 2015. To achieve this, the telco kicked off with a heavy investment in digitalization, in particular by acquiring video content and ramping up video quality. Simultaneously, it launched a broadband acceleration program to meet the high bandwidth needs of video services and built DCs to provide IT services.