currency denominated credits and telecommunications equipment bills. In 1998, prepaid subscriptions were made at a loss and infrastructure investments fell. NMT450 operator Moscow Cellular communications was hardest hit due to its about 50% corporate users. The 1998 crisis also caused many regional operators tariff and payment problems with accumulated debt to vendors; large debts were restructured and foreign investors lost out. 2000s In November 2013 President Putin instructed Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet in 2014–2016 to provide "modern communication services" to rural settlements throughout Russia with a population of 250 to 500 people, by Rostelecom at the expense of the provision of universal service. The document does not specify what is meant by "modern communication services", but sources close to the Ministry of Communications and the state operator explain its intention of connecting villages to the wired internet. The budget comes among others, from the Universal Service Fund. Regulation The Ministry of Communications and Mass Media is responsible for establishing and enforcing state policy in the sphere of electronic and postal communications, for promulgating the development and introduction of new information and communication technologies, and for coordinating the work of other state agencies in this area. Legislative oversight is exercised mainly through the State Duma Committee for mass media. The Committee develops mass media-related draft laws, and provides expert analysis of laws submitted by other Duma committees regarding their compliance with current media law. Universal Service Fund Universal Service Fund is a fund to finance socially important projects, for example, providing payphones in remote settlements. It consists of the contributions of all Russian operators of 1.2% of revenue. These funds are the Federal Communications Agency (Rossvyaz) distributes between 21 universal operator. These operators money comes to the budget, and Rossvâz receives from the budget for compensation and still these amounts roughly coincided, employee profile departments. But universal operators recently complained that they themselves lack the money to compensate for losses in the implementation of social projects. In February 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed amendments to the federal law "On Communications", which set Rostelecom a single operator of universal communication services. The company must commit itself to support the existing infrastructure of Universal Service, including payphones and access points (VRM) on the Internet. In addition to these duties, a single operator will also fight the digital divide by providing broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbit / s settlements up to