Category: Moscow
Moscow’s largest landline telecom provider, MGTS, has announced plans to spend $2 billion on its new GPON network. An investment of about $600 million has already been allocated for this year, Russian business daily Kommersant reported last week.
MGTS is a subsidiary of MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator. It currently includes a client base of 500,000 for broadband Internet services and 4.5 million landline telephony users.
The Bauman university, a leading Russian technical university, and IBM have opened “Smarter City,” a scientific and educational center based on the latest approaches to urban infrastructure management.
The center will conduct R&D in the fields of image, audio and video recognition, cloud calculations and analytical software, in particular
Baltinfo.ru, a St. Petersburg online portal, citing a police source, reported that earlier this year an employee of a popular discount site was caught red-handed trying to sell the company’s client database for 200,000 rubles (less than $6,700).
The sale of the USB flash drive, which contained sensitive client information, was arranged to occur at a popular restaurant in downtown Moscow. The police operation was conducted in early February but it then took authorities seven weeks to initiate prosecution.
Last week, La Conférence Luxe & Digital gathered 40 speakers, 50 journalists, and over 300 industry representatives who shared their experience and views on today’s digital trends in the luxury and fashion industry. This international event, which held its first and second editions in Paris in 2010 and 2011, took place this time in Moscow. It was co-organized by Digital October, the Russian capital’s leading tech event organizer and venue.
On Wednesday, Vimpelcom, a major Russian mobile operator, announced it will deploy the NFC-based contactless payment system it implemented in St. Petersburg last year within the Moscow subway. Widespread commercial launch in Moscow is scheduled for the end of the year.
While most offline and online purchases made in Russia are still paid in cash, contactless payment experiments have been flourishing in several Russian cities over the last two years. Last October, Megafon, another leading operator, also launched NFC payments in the St. Petersburg subway, in addition to using the system for loyalty programs with several local banks and retailers.
Tsentralnyi Telegraf will launch a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) next summer, the company’s commercial director Kirill Karasev announced yesterday at an industry conference. Established in 1852 as Moscow’s very first telegraph station, today Tsentralnyi Telegraf is a provider of ISP, IPTV, VPN, and other telecommunication services in Moscow and its surroundings.
The new MVNO will operate under the same brand name, ‘Qwerty,’ as Tsentralnyi Telegraf’s ISP services. It will use the CDMA-450 network of Skylink, a major 3G operator that launched its own MVNOs one year ago. Tsentralnyi Telegraf and Skylink are both part of the Svyazinvest group.
Rostelecom, the Russian national telecom operator, has launched the construction of a mega data center, located on the premises of the Serp i Molot factory in Moscow. The center’s storage capacity has not been disclosed, but the server rooms will occupy some 10 thousand square meters – twice as much as Sberbank’s existing mega data center in the capital.
The new data center – the first rooms of which are scheduled for launch in the second half of 2013 – will run the national cloud computing platform ordered by the Russian government.
Scartel, the leading Russian WiMAX operator, working under the Yota brand, will switch to an LTE network in Moscow as early as April 15, CEO Denis Sverdlov told journalists last week. Investment in the project will total $60 million.
The new network will make mobile Internet access cheaper and faster than WiMAX, Sverdlov emphasized, as his company progressively switches to LTE its entire network, which covers many regions of the country. Scartel’s first LTE network launched commercially in mid January in Novosibirsk.
From Feb. 28 to Mar. 2, each of the 12 sessions of the legendary TED conference held annually in Long Beach, California, will be broadcast live in Moscow at MOD Design, a platform for contemporary design and innovation located in the center of town.
Among other features, the TED 2012 Full Spectrum event will include a four-day stage program featuring 18-minute talks, plus music, comedy, dance, short talks, video and other surprises.
InPost, a Polish operator of postboxes for parcel delivery, Qiwi, the famous Russian payment operator, and iTech Capital, a Russian venture fund, are deploying a network of postboxes to deliver parcels from distance selling and e-commerce companies.
The postbox network, named Qiwi Post, started operating in early February with 15 locations in Moscow, nearby malls, and commercial centers. Qiwi Post plans to have no less than 400 delivery points open in 20 major Russian cities by the end of 2012.
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