Russian Internet Advances

In a time where the Americans are charging for internet usage based on download quantities, while American infrastructure lags behind, Russia has surged forward with the implementation of 4G internet. The first such network has gone operational in Novosibirsk, Russia's fourth largest city.

The wireless download speeds for the 4G infrastructure is 30mgb/second+, with speeds up to 50mgb being recorded. The cost for the wireless, mobile modems, with unlimited throughput capacity is 1000p (about $30USD) per month, much lower then the cost of regular internet in the States. The system is specifically designed for video conferencing, movie viewing and large blogging. In other words, true multimedia capabilities on the go.

Novosibirsk is the first pull scale test city, with infrastructure already going up in Moscow and St.Petersburg and the rest of Russia's cities. Plans are to have the whole of the country up and wired within the next 3 years. This is also in synch with the new digital television infrastructure that is already operational in 40% of the nation, bringing over 150 channels of digital signals for also around 600p per month ($20).

The triumph came when the government was able to get the four main phone and mobile internet providers to agree to install one joint infrastructural system and then bill off of usage, instead of 4 competing and thus cheaper systems.