Telemedicine: capabilities of telecommunications in clinical practice in Russia.

Successful implementation of telemedicine services depends on an adequate telecommunications infrastructure. At present the main infrastructure in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union consists of analogue telephone lines. These are sufficient for e-mail and access to the World Wide Web but do not provide sufficient bandwidth for the transmission of realtime teleconsultations. ISDN lines and fibre optic cables are becoming more widespread in the major cities but have yet to be installed in the regions.