Maxima Telecom has provided full coverage of the MT_FREE network throughout the large ring line

2023: Providing full MT_FREE coverage throughout the BCL

On March 1, 2023, Maxima Telecom announced the launch of a network throughout the large ring line (BCL) of the Moscow Metro. Since the beginning of train traffic, passengers of the longest circular metro line in the world can enjoy stable Internet access using Wi-Fi technology.

A Wi-Fi connection is available to passengers in each train carriage. Thanks to this, they can watch online videos at a comfortable speed, listen to music, use familiar applications, including during rush hours. In addition, the network resource is provided for the continuous operation of metro service services.

The continuity and quality of Maxima Telecom communication at BCL is provided by more than 200 base stations, and the operator's technological infrastructure for March 2023 combines 150 km of optical and 120 km of electrical cable. All trains running on the line are equipped with access points. For example, in the Moscow 2020 trains, radio equipment and digital solutions are installed at the factory assembly stage. This reduces the time for launching rolling stock into operation and allows you to quickly deploy the necessary services immediately from the moment the train enters the line.

Participation in such a large-scale and responsible project to digitalize the longest circular metro line in the world has become significant for us. It involved hundreds of specialists, the main task of which is to timely provide millions of BCL passengers with a popular city service, as well as provide this segment of the Moscow metro with a functional digital infrastructure and reliable. communication On the basis of the MaximaTelecom network, not only the usual services for passengers are provided, but also the basis for the development of information systems of a large enterprise of the transport complex is being created, - Moscow said the Boris Volpe general director of Maxima Telecom.

The large ring line is a large infrastructure project that will positively affect the lives of Muscovites. With BCL, you can save up to 45 minutes a day on trips. We expect that in the future, 2.3 million trips a day will be made along the large ring. On behalf of the mayor of Moscow, since the opening of this line, we have provided the most relevant services and services for people, including stable access to free Internet in all carriages, "said Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government for Transport.

The Track Side Network is used as a technology for organizing radio communications on the long metro infrastructure. It is designed specifically for rail transport and allows you to effectively organize a dedicated wireless communication network for the implementation of service and passenger solutions in tunnels and rolling stock.

For example, on the basis of a wireless data network "Maxima Telecom" of this type in the metro, in addition to Internet access, various passenger and technological services are being developed in order to increase the comfort of passengers, in particular, a service for assessing the load of cars, broadcasting video content on screens and others.

2022

Maxima Telecom has simplified the connection of passengers to Wi-Fi in Moscow city transport

Maxima Telecom, a public Wi-Fi network operator and rolling stock digital service provider, and the Moscow Department of Transport have simplified connection to the MT FREE network and provided seamless Wi-Fi access for passengers when transferring to the metro. The company "Maxima Telecom" announced this on December 6, 2022. Read more here.

Connecting over 62 million times

Since the beginning of 2022, more than 62 million times have connected to the city Wi-Fi network in Moscow, Deputy Mayor Natalya Sergunina said on October 3, 2022. The network helps residents and guests of the capital communicate, study, work or build routes during walks.

Over the years of development, the city Wi-Fi network in Moscow has become one of the largest in the world. As of October 2022, it has more than 24 thousand access points. 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, "Natalia Sergunina said.

She noted that in 2022, about 800 access points appeared in the capital, and the volume of traffic exceeded eight petabytes (eight million gigabytes). Including 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.

You can see where there is Wi-Fi nearby on the interactive map on the portal mos.ru. At the same time, as noted in the metropolitan Department of Information Technology, the wireless network functions seamlessly: the user can move and connect to it in different parts of the city without re-authorization during the day.

The first point of access to the city Wi-Fi appeared on the Frunzenskaya embankment in 2013. Only within the Sadovoy and the Third Transport Ring there are over 3.6 thousand of them. 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.

2021: MT FREE launched in tunnels from Mnevniki station to Kakhovskaya station of the Big Ring Line

On December 8, 2021, Maxima Telecom launched the MT FREE network in the Moscow Metro. Unlimited high-speed Wi-Fi appeared in tunnels from the Mnevniki station to the Kakhovskaya station of the Big Ring Line.

Network capabilities for metro passengers became available from December 7 simultaneously with the launch of the metro section, which includes 10 stations. The maximum available speed for passengers will be more than 200 Mbps. Wireless MT_FREE technologies in tunnels and rolling stock provide a stable signal for comfortable online video viewing, listening to music and using popular streaming services and business applications, including during peak hours.

For uninterrupted operation of the MT_FREE network, 59 base stations are installed in the distillates at this section of the BCL, 50 km of optical and 46 km of electric cable are stretched. All trains running on the line are equipped with access points. For example, Moscow 2020 train cars are equipped with the necessary radio equipment at the factory assembly stage. This reduces the time for the rolling stock to be put into operation and makes services available to passengers immediately from the moment the train enters the line.

We continue to expand the MT FREE network in accordance with the pace of development of the Moscow Metro. Stable unlimited Internet access using Wi-Fi technology in metro trains remains a familiar and popular city service for passengers that supports their digital lifestyle. The MT FREE network allows you to always be in touch and build the optimal route, timely informing about changes in train movement and public work, transport Moscow- commented, Boris Volpe General Director of Maxima Telecom JSC.

On the basis of the wireless network "Maxima Telecom" in the metro, various passenger and technological services are also being developed to increase the comfort of passengers, for example, a service for assessing the workload of cars.

2019

Launch in partnership with Tinkoff Mobile of a service for connecting to Wi-Fi in the metro without advertising

On December 26, 2019, Tinkoff Mobile announced that, as part of a partnership with the public network operator Maxima Telecom, the company launched a Wi-Fi connection service in the metro without advertising in its mobile application. Read more here.

Closed Wi-Fi with encryption was launched in the Moscow metro

On September 3, 2019, Maxima Telecom announced the launch of a closed wireless network with encryption in the Moscow metro. It is deployed using Hotspot 2.0 technology, which has protection against interception of traffic between the access point and the client device. In addition, it protects against automatic connection to phishing hotspots.

When connecting to a WiFi network in the subway, users can choose between two access points (SSIDs: MT and MT_FREE. To connect to MT, you need to install a trusted profile released by Maxima Telecom on the device . By early September 2019, the profile is available only for iOS gadgets through a special landing (https://wi-fi.ru/hotspot/), and later it will be launched for Android.

A new Wi-Fi network has appeared in the Moscow metro, excluding third-party cyber attacks

It is noted that it will be possible to use closed Wi-Fi with encryption for free. The service will be monetized through advertising. For users of the Like at Home service (premium package), you will not need to view ads.

We understand the need for users to connect securely to public networks. With the introduction of the Hotspot 2.0 Wi-Fi technology stack in the Moscow Metro, it will become the largest secure public network in Europe, "said Boris Volpe, CEO of Maxima Telecom.

Open testing of Hotspot 2.0 technology with profile installation will last for three months.

By the beginning of September 2019, a single digital space MT_FREE from Maxima Telecom is available Moscow in and, Petersburg metro urban land, transport Moscow trains, Aeroexpress commuter trains and at 15 regional airports.^[1]

Earlier in 2019 , "Maxima Telecom" became the winner of the competition for the selection of a single operator of the Moscow Internet. By the end of December, the company will have to integrate all existing points into a single urban Wi-Fi space, providing a stable coverage area. 

2018

Plan for the modernization of the Wi-Fi network for 1 billion rubles

On September 10, 2018, it became known that the telecom operator Maxima Telecom, which is developing Wi-Fi in public transport, decided to modernize the wireless Internet network in the Moscow Metro due to traffic growth.

Modernization will take one and a half to two years. The operator plans to install radio equipment that provides speeds up to 500 Mbps (previously peak speed was 100-110 Mbps), and will also update train antennas and base station software.

The total investment in modernization may amount to approximately 1 billion rubles, although the company will determine the exact amount^[2].

Major leak: Wi-Fi operator in Moscow metro uploads user data to public access

April 9, 2018 The Village^[3], spoke about a vulnerability in the free Wi-Fi "MT FREE" of Moscow transport. It was discovered by programmer Vladimir Serov. The "hole" was presumably available for about a year. It allowed you to download a "digital portrait" of any connected passenger in the carriage - his phone number, the analyst of the Maxima Telecom operator about the age and employment of a person, his marital status, the stations where he lives and works, and then even track a person's movement on the subway in real time. The "Serov method" was technically simple: the data in the code of the authorization page in unencrypted form could be opened by anyone who replaced the public address of his device - the MAC address - with the address of any other smartphone in the car.

After the publication, "Maxima Telecom" promptly removed all the data of the "digital" portrait from the authorization page code, and Roskomnadzor announced that it would check the incident.

What is the vulnerability

Any device that supports Wi-Fi has a unique number called a MAC address. Authorization on the urban Internet is MT_FREE done by combining a MAC address with a phone number that the passenger himself registers in the system - at the request of the law on countering terrorism. The authorization page opens automatically for everyone. The developer of the network, the provider "Maxima Telecom," placed an advertising block there. It is on him that the company earns. To make advertising more effective, targeting is used - you are given those ads that are better suited to your digital portrait of preferences. Usually, this portrait is collected by large analytical and marketing companies, which then transmit data in encrypted form to specific advertising platforms. However, programmer Vladimir Serov found that the digital portrait, including the phone number on the Wi-Fi authorization page in the Moscow metro, is not encrypted in any way.

Serov told The Village that he found the vulnerability on March 5, and turned to familiar developers from mos.ru, "making sure that the request reached the person responsible for the wi-fi in the subway." It is worth noting that Serov did not directly contact Maxim, and a week later he decided to publish the find on a specialized resource for programmers.

the same day, I wrote about this vulnerability to the guys from mos.ru, because MaximTelecom itself does not have normal technical support. That is, I told their superiors about how the contractor distributes personal data about users to the right and left - the letter was lowered down, but I never received an answer. I waited a week and wrote on the "Habrahabr.ru" post "How to get a phone (almost) any beauty in Moscow, or An interesting feature. MT_FREE" I made a small script that uploaded the data itself in a convenient form. My readers and I started having fun

The Village discovered that according to the Wayback Machine service, the vulnerability has been in the authorization page code since at least May 17, 2017. In August, the company announced that 1.5 million users pass identification on the network every day, and earlier, in December 2016, that more than 12 million users are registered in total. The same network of MT_FREE is now available in Aeroexpress, on the Moscow Central Ring and even in some suburban trains, including Lastochki. And since 2017, Maxim has been developing the same network in the St. Petersburg metro.

How to track your location

Serov did not stop at receiving a "digital portrait." Examining the intelligibility in more detail, he found a current_station indicator ("current station") that was constantly changing. The names of the stations themselves in it were replaced with regular numbers. Quite quickly, we managed to draw up a map simply by tracking the movement of our own MAC address, and find out, for example, that "164" is "Yuzhnaya," and "165" is "Prague" - stations on one branch are numbered sequentially. Having written another simple script, Serov managed to track the movement of another person on the subway in real time - a certain girl was returning home from work. During testing, one of the 16 randomly caught MAC addresses succumbed to surveillance. It is not known how much data tied to phone numbers other people could have already saved in a year. With such a base, it is possible to potentially track more than 10 million phones in the subway now.

Usually, only special services can track the geolocation of specific phones - subscriber triangulation technology using proximity to cell towers requires a court decision and constant communication with cellular operators. The MT_FREE vulnerability makes the movement of a subscriber on the subway absolutely transparent.

2016: Network Hacking Reports

The provider of free Wi-Fi in the Moscow metro denied information about unauthorized changes in content on its official website, which could cause demonstrations threatening terrorist attacks in Moscow, and noted that this is possible only if a fake network with the similar name^[4] is created^[5].

If there were an unauthorized interference with the MosMetro-FREE wireless network, the images would be shown to all wireless users. We can assume that an attacker deployed an independent wireless network with a duplicate identifier, "the press service said.

Earlier, the media reported that a passenger saw the flag of the IS terrorist group banned in Russia when connected to free Wi-Fi on the Kaluga-Riga line, as well as a message threatening to carry out terrorist attacks in Moscow.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, passengers of the Moscow metro saw a similar message when trying to connect to the Internet. Then Maxima Telecom also said that there was no network hacking.

2013-2014

The Moscow Metro Wi-Fi appeared in 2013, and on December 1, 2014, the MosMetro_Free network was launched on all 12 subway lines. For its functioning, 880 kilometers of optical cable were stretched in 330 kilometers of underground tunnels and more than 900 base stations (devices that broadcast a radio signal) were installed. Almost 5.5 thousand metro cars are equipped with Wi-Fi routers (devices that receive a signal from base stations and distribute to passengers). Each of the 650 trains of the metropolitan subway connects to the Internet to speeds up to 100 Mbps, and the total network capacity is 20 Gbps^[6] of^[7]

The economic model of the underground Wi-Fi network is also interesting: access to it is free - and still makes a profit. First, the operator makes money from advertising. Secondly, every time you access the network, an infotainment portal is automatically loaded. By placing partner content, the operator also monetizes the service. According to statistics, the daily audience of the resource is more than a million users, while about 50 percent of them visit the site twice and more often per day.

See also

• Smart cities

Notes