Free city Wi-Fi appeared in 15 more metropolitan sports institutions

The main articles are:

• Public Wi-Fi networks in Russia
• Moscow Smart City

The city Wi-Fi network is a core wireless infrastructure for the development of services and services within the framework of the Smart City concept, providing residents and guests of the capital with free Internet access.

Wi-Fi network "Moscow Transport" (MT FREE)

Main article: Unified Wi-Fi network "Moscow Transport" (MT FREE)

2024: Moscow buys traffic filtering systems in public Wi-Fi networks for 1 billion rubles

In July 2024, it became known that Moscow significantly increased the volume of purchases of traffic filtering systems for public Wi-Fi networks. The total amount of contracts for providing access to street Wi-Fi with traffic analysis and filtering exceeded 1 billion rubles, which is twice as much as in 2023. Read more here.

2023

The advent of Wi-Fi in 15 metropolitan sports institutions

Free urban Wi-Fi appeared in 15 more metropolitan sports institutions. More than 160 access points to the wireless network were installed there, Moscow_WiFi_Free on June 8, 2023, they told the metropolitan Department of Information Technology.

The city Wi-Fi network began to work in the Moscow Center for Martial Arts, the Yantar Stadium, the Yuzhny Pool and the Vostochny Sports Complex of the Moscow Sports School of the Olympic Reserve, as well as in the On the Coast Aquastudium. Access to the Internet here is provided by 64 hot spots.

Also, about 100 points of access to free Internet appeared in the regional sports complexes "Luch," "Yauza," "Rechnoy," "Red Lighthouse," "Polar Star," "Maryina Roshcha," "Parus," "Lianozovo," "Academic," "Medvedkovo Arena," as well as in the fitness center "Yasnogorsky."

The speed of urban Wi-Fi in sports institutions is at least 10 megabits per second, this is enough to use the usual. Internet services For example, visitors will be able to use special applications for training, watch videos with exercise techniques or analysis of game situations, as well as stay in touch with loved ones. The city will continue to develop a network of free Wi-Fi in sports institutions for the comfort and convenience of visitors, - said Alexander Kharitonov, head of the City Wi-Fi project of the Department. information technology Moscow

Connecting South River Station

The South River Station was connected to the city's Wi-Fi network. In the building of the station, updated after a large-scale reconstruction, 12 access points to free wireless Internet were installed. This was announced on May 22, 2023 by the Moscow Department of Information Technologies (DIT).

Moscow expands the city's Wi-Fi network so residents can have free access Internet to virtually any part of the city. Now wireless Internet has appeared at the South River Station, which recently opened after reconstruction and is already gaining popularity among Muscovites and guests of the capital. This will make it even more comfortable to spend time, quickly receive information and stay in touch with friends and loved ones, - said Alexander Kharitonov, project manager of the City Wi-Fi project of the Moscow Department of Information Technologies.

{{quote "We are expanding the wireless Internet network on the transport infrastructure of the capital. Passengers can connect to Wi-Fi on metro trains, buses, electric buses, trams. Thanks to the development of a free city network Moscow_WiFi_Free Internet access has appeared at bus stations and bus stations. In 2020, access points appeared at the updated North River Station. And now there is a free city Wi-Fi network at the South River Station, which opened after reconstruction at the end of April 2023. We will continue to create comfortable conditions for our guests and passengers, develop convenient services for the task of the Mayor of Moscow, - said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government for Transport. }}

The Moscow_WiFi_Free network is also available at all bus stations and bus stations in the capital. You can use it at the Central Bus Station, at the international bus stations Salaryevo, South Gate and North Gate, as well as at the bus stations Varshavskaya and Orekhovo.

In total, in the capital, as of May 2023, more than 22 thousand connection points to the free city network are available. They are located in parks, cultural and sports institutions, bus stations, as well as on central streets within the Sadovoy and Third Transport Ring.

You can see where there is a free Internet access point nearby on the interactive map on the portal mos.ru.

To connect to the free Internet in the city, you need to select a Moscow_WiFi_Free from the list of available networks. After that, you need to go through identification in the browser using an account on the mos.ru or by SMS message, and then click the "Log in to the Internet" button.

Re-authorization is not needed to connect to wireless Internet throughout the city. In accordance with the requirement of Russian legislation, users must undergo re-identification every three months.

2022: City Wi-Fi network in Moscow has become one of the largest in the world in 9 years

The city Wi-Fi network in Moscow has become one of the largest in the world in 9 years. This was announced in early October 2022 by the deputy mayor of the capital Natalya Sergunina. According to him, there are more than 24 thousand access points to urban Wi-Fi in Moscow.

At the same time, the coating is constantly expanding. Wireless Internet works on many streets within the Sadovoy and even the Third Transport Ring, and in almost a thousand different objects and institutions - from libraries and parks to student hostels, "she said.

City Wi-Fi network in Moscow has become one of the largest in the world

Sergunina noted that in 2022, about 800 new access points appeared in the capital, and the volume of traffic exceeded 8 PB. The city Wi-Fi began to work throughout the central part of VDNKh - from the arch of the main entrance to the Industrial Square and the Vostok launch vehicle. Also in 2022, seven parks, 10 theaters and 42 other cultural and sports institutions were connected to the network.

As explained in the press service of the Moscow mayor's office, you can see where there is Wi-Fi nearby on an interactive map on the portal mos.ru. At the same time, the user can move and connect to the wireless network in different parts of the city without re-authorization during the day.

To connect to the free Internet, you need to select Moscow_WiFi_Free in the list of available networks and pass identification using your mos.ru account or via SMS. This must be done every three months in accordance with the requirements of the law.

Telecommunications expert Sergei Polovnikov says you can use city Wi-Fi to save mobile traffic. He explained that a small amount of mobile traffic is consumed when communicating in chats or watching news feeds or social networks. The lion's share of mobile traffic consumption is consumed when watching various videos. To do this, he advised using Wi-Fi.^[1]

2019

76% of Moscow libraries are already connected to a free Wi-Fi network

Since the beginning of this year, free Internet has been launched in 55 more libraries in Moscow. Now you can use the Wi-Fi network in 336 city reading rooms. To do this, select a Moscow_WiFi_Free in the list of available networks, open a browser and log in.

percent of city libraries are already equipped with free wireless Internet. They have more than two thousand access points - about six in each building. Therefore, Muscovites can work with large amounts of information, watch videos, listen to audio materials. This expands opportunities for training and research, "said Natalya Sergunina, Deputy Mayor of Moscow

The vice-mayor also noted that libraries with free Internet are in all 11 districts of the capital. More of these are read in the east (50), southeast (44) and south (41) of the city.

To connect to the Internet, you need to select a Moscow_WiFi_Free from the list of available networks, open a browser and log in. This can be done in two ways: using an account on the mos.ru or via SMS. In the first case, to connect, you need to enter a login and password, in the second - specify the phone number to which the message with the code will come.

In 2019, more than 15 thousand points of access to wireless Internet will be united on a single platform - on the streets inside the Garden Ring and locally within the Third Transport Ring, in parks, libraries, houses of culture, museums, Moskino network cinemas and university hostels. Thus, you will not need to reconnect to Wi-Fi while moving around the city. In addition, a single technical support service will start working for users, whose employees will help when using a wireless network.

Today, more than three thousand access points to the free city Wi-Fi network operate on the streets within the Third Transport Ring, more than 1.1 thousand in 40 metropolitan parks, and 880 in 199 houses of culture. Another 336 points are in 14 city museums, 62 - in 13 cinemas of the Moskino network and the Eldar film club-museum. In addition, urban Wi-Fi is available in 151 university dormitories (more than 8.1 thousand points) and at VDNH (147 points).

According to statistics last year, approximately 24.3 million times connected to the city's Wi-Fi network, which is 27.5 percent higher than in 2017. The peak in the number of connections was in May, when 4.8 million times used wireless Internet. The total number of unique devices with which they went online in 2018 exceeded 5.4 million (in 2017 there were more than 3.7 million).

Maxima Telecom was chosen as the single operator of the Moscow Wi-Fi network

At the end of January 2019, Maxima Telecom was chosen as the single operator of the Moscow Wi-Fi network. The company won the competition, stating that it would fulfill the project for 149.5 million rubles. A competitor - Netbynet (controlled by MegaFon) - asked for 160.6 million rubles for its services.

The victory of Maxima Telecom in this competition was reported by Kommersant with reference to the public procurement portal. It is necessary to complete the work under the terms of the contract in the first half of 2020.

A single operator of the capital's Wi-Fi has been chosen

As the publication was told in the Moscow Department of Information Technologies, a single operator will provide the possibility of potential integration of up to 25 thousand access points in the city free Wi-FI network. By the end of January 2019, it has more than 15 thousand hot spots. In particular, Wi-Fi operates in 40 parks, libraries, houses of culture, cinemas, at the most popular public transport stops near metro stations and the Moscow Central Ring (MCC), bus stations and railway platforms.

Maxima Telecom will have to ensure the collection, storage, analysis of monitoring data and user traffic using Big Data and DPI technologies, as well as provide reports to the city authorities. Purchasing documents explain that DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) is a technology for deep analysis of data traffic and end-user profiles. The press service of the Moscow Department of Information Technology explained to Kommersant that this is "a standard function of any communication service," and such an analysis "is necessary to predict the socio-economic development of the city."

Previously, contractors for servicing the Wi-Fi network on the streets, parks and museums were Prestige-Internet (part of Er-Telecom Holding), Akado, MGTS and VimpelCom. By the beginning of 2019, all public networks will unite on the Maxima Telecom platform MT_FREE.^[2]

2018: Wi-Fi remains the most popular way to access the Internet wirelessly

An EY study found that Wi-Fi networks are still the most popular way to access the Internet wirelessly. In particular, in Moscow, there was an increase in the number of public Wi-Fi access points by more than 10 times in 2 years. However, there is also an outflow of users to the mobile Internet segment: in particular, 65% of respondents in certain situations did not risk connecting to public Wi-Fi for reasons of data security and the complexity of the connection process.

The Wi-Fi network in the Moscow metro has 20 million registered devices. For more than two minutes, if you take into account interruptions in communication, after connecting to a Wi-Fi network in the subway, the user is forced to view ads. The cost of disabling advertising ranges from 170 rubles. up to 350 rubles. per month.

Ernst & Young notes that the number of users of Moscow Wi-Fi is growing largely due to visitors who save on roaming with public Wi-Fi.

With an increase in the number of access points, Ernst & Young records a decrease in the number of sessions and traffic volume. In particular, from December 2016 to July 2017, the number of sessions on public Wi-Fi increased by 269%, but then by January 2018 it decreased by 49%.

According to the study, if a Wi-Fi network does not require identification, 70% of users switch to it from the mobile Internet, and 20% will continue to use a 3G- or 4G connection. About 5% of users do not connect to Wi-Fi at all, using cellular communication on all devices.

2017

Choosing contractors to deploy free Wi-Fi in Moscow

In October 2017, the Moscow government held a competition to deploy free wireless Internet access in the capital. The costs of the project will amount to almost 830 million rubles, Vedomosti writes with reference to public procurement data.

We are talking about three categories of networks - on the streets, in Moscow houses of culture, as well as in universities, museums and parks.

The tender for the installation of 2 thousand street access points was won by the provider "Prestige-Internet" (Enforta brand, part of). Er-Telecom Holding The contract with him will be concluded in the amount of 333 million rubles.

Moscow will spend 830 million rubles on free Wi-Fi

In 2016, Enforta launched a network of 1,100 access points in the capital. By October 2017, the company provides coverage of 64% of the territory inside the Boulevard Ring and 30% inside the Garden Ring.

Part of the tender for the creation of public Wi-Fi networks was also won by the Zyfra One operator: for 348 million rubles, he will conduct Wi-Fi in houses of culture. In addition, several more companies will provide Internet access in universities, museums and parks: VimpelCom (15.6 million rubles), MGTS (54.3 million rubles) and Setel (79 million rubles).

The free Wi-Fi network, due in the capital ahead of the World Cup in 2018, is designed to help foreign tourists. Their influx is expected to increase the load on cellular networks, and public Wi-Fi will allow you to take over part of it. Wi-Fi can also be useful to city services, traffic police and structures responsible for paying for parking lots.

Taking into account the costs of building a network, renting places for access points, as well as provided that the city Wi-Fi should work efficiently and at high speed, the Moscow government's fee for free access is even slightly lower than market prices, said Iskratelecom CEO Alkhas Mirzabekov.^[3]

Plan to expand the free Wi-Fi network to 12 parks, 70 museums and 151 cultural centers

The coverage area of ​ ​ a free Wi-Fi network in Moscow will be expanded. According to the Moscow Department of Information Technology (DIT) in November, the network will appear in 12 parks, 70 museums and 151 cultural centers of the capital.

Installation of equipment at some facilities has already begun. By the end of December 2017, more than 400 access points will be installed in 78 cultural centers and about 50 more in five parks. It is planned to connect all points by the end of 2018.

"In each urban area, specialists determine the optimal places to install Wi-Fi access points. They will provide users with a stable signal within a radius of up to 50 meters, and switching between them will not require re-authorization, "the DIT noted

Wi-Fi points will work in Vorontsovsky Park and Fili Park, Mitino Landscape Park, as well as in Sadovniki and Severnoye Tushino Parks. In total, more than 200 access points will be installed in 12 recreation areas. Wireless Internet will also appear in the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, the Manezh Museum and Exhibition Association, the ZIL and Stimul cultural centers.

By the end of this year, free Internet will also be held in all cinemas of the Moskino network of the Moscow Department of Culture. Access points have already been launched in nine sports schools, and in 2018 another 18 will be connected to Wi-Fi. Free Wi-Fi began to equip boarding houses for pensioners and veterans. In addition, the Internet is available on 200 streets in the center of Moscow and in 24 city parks, as well as in public transport. Each access point provides a signal within a radius of up to 50 meters. Up to 15 thousand devices can work on the network at the same time.

Within the Garden Ring and in Moscow parks, more than two thousand points of free WiFi Internet access

There are many access points to free Wi-Fi on the streets, parks and pedestrian zones of Moscow. Within the Garden Ring and in Moscow parks there are over two thousand of them. Internet is also available in public transport. The seamless zone applies to the metro, MCC, aeroexpress, as well as buses, trams and trolleybuses. This means that when switching from one type of transport to another, you do not have to re-pass authorization.

Mobile Internet still costs Muscovites eight times cheaper than New Yorkers. In terms of the availability of fixed communications among all cities on the planet, Moscow ranks second^[4] of^[5].

The project of free wireless Internet access was launched in the capital in 2012^[6]. At first, the city's Wi-Fi network was created in recreation areas - parks, pedestrian zones, cultural spaces. And now you can connect to the Internet for free in the metro, and by ground transport, and in student hostels. Now, in terms of the number of Wi-Fi access points, Moscow ranks second in the world^[7].

The city network covers 24 open areas: Moscow Zoo, VDNKh, parks and pedestrian streets; 14 public spaces - libraries and cultural centers; as well as 150 student dormitory buildings. In total, there are more than 8.5 thousand access points (hot spots) in the capital. Free Wi-Fi is also available on the subway and ground public transport.

Internet wherever you need it

Initially, the city's Wi-Fi network was deployed in recreation areas - parks, pedestrian zones, cultural spaces. Now wireless Internet is moving towards areas of mass concentration of people. In particular, a pilot project is being launched to develop an access network inside the Garden Ring until 2018. The city will actively interact with investors and telecom operators to improve the infrastructure, create and test various services for citizens and business users^[8].

The study of geoanalytics - impersonal statistics of cellular operators on the movements of subscribers around the city - made it possible to determine the points where Wi-Fi is most in demand. In two years, about a thousand new hot spots will appear in Moscow, for example, on the Kremlin embankment and Gogolevsky Boulevard, Mokhova, Myasnitskaya, Bolshaya Bronnaya and Bolshaya Nikitskaya streets.

An important feature of the new network will be "seamless" authorization. That is, once gaining access to the network, it will be possible to freely move around the signal range without reconnecting. As now, it will be possible to log in in three ways: using SMS notification, the account of the Moscow portal of public services or the Unified Mobile Platform of Moscow.

The Moscow WiFi Free city network has quite high technical characteristics. Each access point provides signal reception at a speed of 5-15 Mbps within a radius of 20 to 50 meters and supports up to 100 user sessions.

To connect to city Wi-Fi, users must go through the identification procedure. This is a requirement of federal legislation. The first way is via SMS. The user connects to the network, gets to the page where he needs to enter his phone number, which will receive an SMS message with a code. After that, the user gets to the start page of the city Wi-Fi network. According to statistics, no more than five percent of users log in to Moscow networks. The second is identification on the portal http://mos.ru. To log in to a city Wi-Fi network, you need to enter the login and password from one of these systems at the user's choice. The same login and password for Wi-Fi on Moscow streets, in parks and student hostels. In the network of Moscow transport, it is necessary to register separately.

In land transport

The wireless access network in urban land transport Mosgortrans_Free launched in 2015. At first, stops were equipped with equipment (now there are about 450 such hot spots), then they began to install it in vehicles. Wi-Fi is distributed by about four thousand buses, trolleybuses and trams; by the end of 2016, coverage will double.

The service is clearly in demand: according to the Deputy Mayor of Moscow, Head of the Department of Transport and Road Transport Infrastructure Development Maxim Liksutov, more than 250 thousand people used Internet access over the year, and the total number of connections to the network exceeded one million. The potential audience is much higher: statistics show that Moscow's ground transport carries more than 5.5 million passengers every day.

Wi-Fi in city parks

In 2016, the number of parks with free Wi-Fi doubled. Wireless Internet last year became available to Muscovites in 12 more green zones. Among them are Kolomenskoye, Victory Park, Vorobyovskaya Embankment, Moscow Zoo and others. In total, free Wi-Fi operates in 24 parks and pedestrian zones (see the list below), including VDNKh, Gorky Park and Muzeon, Sokolniki and other^[9].

Only from December 31, 2016 to January 8, 2017, Muscovites connected to free city Wi-Fi in the capital's parks about 125 thousand times. The leaders in the number of authorized users were VDNKh and Sokolniki. For all the holidays, their visitors connected to free Wi-Fi 25 thousand and 19 thousand times, respectively.

"The leader in terms of downloaded traffic - 1744 gigabytes - was the Kuzminki park. The largest loading of channels was recorded in Sokolniki. For high-quality Internet communication, 165 access points have been installed in this park, "the Department said. In second place in terms of coating density is VDNH with 128 hotspots.

Are these networks safe to use?

The main task of free urban Wi-Fi networks is to give residents and tourists access to the Internet. These are public networks, and they do not encrypt the data that you transfer from your tablets or smartphones, so the rules of caution must be observed. If you use public networks to access the Internet, you need to protect your smartphone or tablet with security programs so that attackers do not intercept your data. But now most sites and services independently encrypt traffic (that is, data exchange), so you should not worry too much about security.

Do not worry about the safety of your personal data: login, password and other information that you indicated on the city's websites. They are protected, are not transferred to third parties and are stored encrypted in the Moscow unified mobile platform, experts from the Moscow Department of Information Technology say.

What happens next for the city's wireless networks?

Now experts are studying the possibilities of various wireless technologies, for example Li-Fi, LoraWAN, NB-IoT, and are finding out whether the city needs to use them.

All these technologies can be used on the "Internet of Things" - to exchange information between different devices in automatic mode. Thus, the water supply accounting system can automatically request data on water consumption from the meters that are in the apartment, and smart city transport will automatically receive data on traffic jams and changes in traffic lights.

To ensure efficient interaction, data transfer technologies and reliable cost-effective devices are needed. Let's say that the sensor transmitting information works on one battery for ten years. Such options are now being selected by specialists.

Perhaps the elements of the "Internet of Things" are used in the new city project "Smart Quarter of Lublin." For example, the entrances of houses will be equipped with systems that will turn off the light if there is no one in the stairwell. Now we are preparing a competition for the development of the draft quarter, and it should start in the first quarter of this year.

The immediate plans are to increase the number of street access points within the Garden Ring. This will expand the seamless access area, in which the smartphone will not lose the network while you walk in the center of Moscow.

2016: Plan to allocate 175 million rubles for free Wi-Fi inside the Garden Ring

The city authorities plan to spend 175 million rubles to install equipment inside the Garden Ring, which will provide citizens with a free wireless Internet connection, according to the radio station "Says" Moscow^[10]

It is noted that such equipment will be installed in 425 places, in particular on Neglinnaya, Mokhovaya and Myasnitskaya streets, Tsvetnoy, Tverskoy and Chistoprudny boulevards, as well as on Red Square and the Kremlin embankment. At the same time, urban Wi-Fi will be available not only on the streets, but also inside buildings.

To use the network, Muscovites will necessarily need to go through the identification procedure.

Earlier it was reported that in Moscow, by the end of summer, free Wi-Fi in the metro and ground transport will be combined. In Moscow, ^[11].

See also

• Moscow Smart city# City Wi-Fi and mobile Internet

Notes