Starting Wi-Fi in the underground of St. Petersburg was estimated at 1.8 billion rubles. – RBC

The launch of free Wi-Fi in the underground of St. Petersburg will require 1.8 billion rubles. – This amount of investment was announced at a meeting of the city council of the investment, according to “Fontanka”. Thus, the launch of Wi-Fi on five subway lines Petersburg will cost the same amount as the holding of wireless internet in the Moscow subway with 12 branches.

The launch of Wi-Fi interested companies “MaksimaTelekom”, wireless Internet operator Moscow subway, TASS. “We are ready to implement the project at their own expense, provided support from the city,” – said at a meeting of the General Director of the company Boris Volpe. St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko has supported the initiative of the operator, the agency said. At the same time, he noted that “should explore the possibility of competition for equipment metro Wi-Fi network, as there may be other investors».

Metropolitan of St. Petersburg announced a competition to launch Wi-Fi in the fall 2015, but he was declared invalid due to lack of applications. Thus in September 2015 the company « MaksimaTelekom » was ready to launch the network, wrote “Fontanka» , citing sources. The company did not satisfy the rental cost of infrastructure: underground offered to pay 14 million rubles. per month, but « MaksimaTelekom » insisted on the symbolic amount – for example, 1 rub. per month, the publication.

Now, city officials agreed that the value of the right network equipment placement in the metro need to reduce, told RBC representative “MaksimaTelekom” Ilya Grabowski. According to “Fontanka”, the chairman of the investment committee Irina Babyuk at the meeting said that the exemption of 90% on the rental of infrastructure will allow the investor to recoup the investment in eight years instead of 12. According to Grabowski, the question of a discount on the placement of equipment were asked to consider at the next meeting of the St. Petersburg government.

«MaksimaTelekom” started to build a network of free Wi-Fi in the Moscow metro in December, 2014. The company has agreed to invest in the project is 1.8 billion rubles. Among the owners of the former president “Sitronics” Sergey Aslanian, the names of other shareholders, it does not reveal.