I had to say I figured that Moscow, Russia would never give away WiFi! WiFi hotspots is something that is not easy to find cheaply in Moscow. Example: In Kiev, Ukraine I find free WiFi easy to get and have even set in a city park and worked on my data/communications before…
Why even the free McDonald’s WiFi in Russia has been cut in half. More and more McDonald’s in Russia have removed WiFi due to not enough seats and too many free loafers taking up valuable tables, that need to be turned over more often…
But now lets go below ground to one of the busiest Metros in the world. (Some say the busiest and some say the second busiest after Tokyo!) A place that is so crowded at times that you can not do anything but shuffle slowly from one point to another. A place that has about one park bench for people to rest on per 100,000 passengers. Now for the last few months, the Moscow Metro has been providing its passengers with a free, high-speed WiFi connection. This was done on a trial bases only at a few stations and the Moscow Metro wanted to see if it would be worth putting WiFi in the whole Metro system…
Within just one short month, commuters traveling the Moscow Metro, used the World Wide Web – 12 million times, with the average passenger spending 12 minutes online while underground. The experiment was deemed ‘interesting’ by the authority’s and, most importantly, did not interfere with passenger traffic? (What about passenger comfort?) As a result free WiFi connectivity will be available throughout the whole metro system by 2014 and on surface commuter trains by the end of this year…
Now I found that interesting and if you have ever traveled the Moscow Metro, then you will also have thoughts like mine and wonder how will trains and capacities that are already maxed out, be able to function when they are full of people riding all day just to use the WiFi? It makes me think of that person who sits in McDonald’s for 6 hours and drank one cup of coffee the whole time, as they use the WiFi that is free, to watch movies and other worthless things like that…
Sorry but sitting in the Moscow Metro to use the WiFi seems a little drastic! The Metro is designed for one thing and one thing only. Masses movements of humans from point A to point B…
But “Whatever floats your boat!” I always say…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!