OREANDA-NEWS  Owned by Gazprom-Media Holding (GPMH), the Rutube video hosting company expects to catch up with YouTube in key technical indicators and, according to Kommersant, intends to spend about 30 billion rubles on this. The infrastructure upgrade program also includes expanding the network of geographically distributed servers. Experts note that we are talking about either a multi-year financing plan, or a complete upgrade of the service. The implementation of the plan, however, may be hindered by the recent dismissal of key members of the Rutube team.

Rutube expects to invest in a large-scale infrastructure upgrade, two sources familiar with the company's plans told Kommersant. According to them, the video hosting company estimates the cost of this in the region of 30 billion rubles. One of the sources said that funding within the GPMH has already been allocated: "Initially Rutube requested 50-55 billion rubles."

According to the source, Rutube expects to increase server capacity so that the maximum number of simultaneous users of the service is comparable to the level of YouTube.

The infrastructure program, according to him, also includes the expansion of the content delivery network (CDN). Rutube did not respond to a request from Kommersant.