04. august. 2003.
Russia's First Steps into WLAN
Intel recently certified the first hot spot supported by St. Petersburg-based WISP (Wireless ISP) Comset. The move comes less than four months after the first commercial launch of WLAN service in Russia, which occurred almost simultaneously in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The number of hot spots in both cities is expected to grow to hundreds by the end of this year. For now, wireless ISPs are at the forefront of the WLAN trend, but it is only a matter of time before mobile operators delve in.
The pace of WLAN rollout in St. Petersburg remains faster than in Moscow. One reason for this is that St. Petersburg attracts on average 4-5 million domestic and foreign tourists every year and the 300th Jubilee celebrations provide an additional stimulus to WLAN installations in April-May 2003. Today, Comset's hot spot network includes hotels, business centers, coffee houses and major sightseeing landmarks. By year end 2003, we expect Comset to have 200 hot spots. Comset's local competitor, Quantum Communications, has been focusing on computer stores but also targets the hospitality industry and, as part of its test, is currently offering WLAN access free of charge. We expect approximately 100 hot spots from Quantum by year end.
In contrast to Western Europe, where major mobile operators are actively pushing WLAN, fixed service providers have been ahead of the curve in Russia. Vimpelcom was the first Russian celco to build a test WLAN network in cooperation with Cisco in November 2002, but it has yet to launch the service, nor have MTS and Megafon; Russia's two other cellular behemoths explicitly stated their interest in deploying WLAN. While they bide their time (or presumably, focus on the still-growing voice market), WLAN players such as Quantum in St. Petersburg or the Moscom/Tascom tandem in Moscow are pioneering commercial WLAN services in Russia. Likewise, a number of FWA operators, notably Art Communications, are pushing enterprise WLAN solutions. One should, however, expect mobile players to delve into the WLAN game more actively if that segment expands rapidly, for they can hardly afford to stay out.
For more information on the Russian Mobile Market, please click here. Feel free to contact Camila in the U.S. at [camila@pyr.com](mailto:camila@pyr.com) / +1 617-494-1515 or Helen in the U.K. at [hgoadby@pyr.com](mailto:hgoadby@pyr.com) / +44 20 7313 2420.