MOSCOW — The Russian communications and information technologies ministry is planning to provide telephone communications for the whole country within 2.5 years, the ministry's head Leonid Reyman has told the State Duma. He commented that 46,000 towns and villages in Russia do not have telephone exchanges at present. The ministry is planning to develop points of collective access to Internet and other means of communication in towns with a population of up to 500,000 people, Reyman added. He also declared that not a single postal communications station would be closed.