Oct 14, 2:02 PM
Back to the Cord: Russian State Firms Turn to Landlines Amid Mobile Internet Outages
As mobile network blackouts spread across Russia, government agencies and state companies are spending millions to revive physical phone lines.
While most modern economies measure progress by fiber-optic coverage and high-speed data networks, Russian state enterprises are making a substantial detour back to copper landline telephones. Procurement data cited by the business daily Vedomosti shows state-owned companies spent 118 million roubles (€1.26 million) on fixed-line systems in the first eight months of 2025—more than triple the amount spent during the same period in 2024, with purchase tenders rising by 12.5 percent.
This corporate rush for fixed hardware reflects growing disruption across the digital landscape. Systematic mobile internet shutdowns, initiated in May 2025 across more than 40 regions, have escalated into routine occurrences affecting nearly 80 percent of the country. Figures from an independent monitoring group recorded 655 mobile internet outages in June 2025, soaring to 2,099 in July—a monthly total exceeding the global count for the entirety of 2024.
Russian officials frame the restrictions as necessary security precautions, asserting that mobile internet networks assist in guiding Ukrainian drones. Industry experts dispute that explanation, emphasizing that drones generally operate on pre-set coordinates without requiring cellular signals, and noting that blackouts frequently target areas far removed from the front lines. Regardless of the driver, the disruptions have severely compromised daily operations in civilian sectors, including mobile banking, ride-hailing services, and logistics.
The operational headaches have been compounded by the departure of Western technology vendors following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. To secure internal communications, Russian ministries and state enterprises have hastened to adopt domestic software-based PBX systems alongside traditional landlines. The demand remains concentrated in primary business hubs like Moscow, where operator MGTS services about two million households out of roughly 17.4 million urban fixed connections nationwide.
The pivot to analog has received high-level endorsement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged in March that the presidential administration uses landline phones to bypass Moscow restrictions. Around the same time, Mikhail Oseyevsky, chief executive of state telecom company Rostelecom, advised citizens to retain fixed connections, arguing that like a fire extinguisher, there should be one in every home.
Yet this landline revival may prove to be a short-term workaround rather than a permanent trend. Russia currently records around 12.2 landline connections per 100 residents. According to projections by the Ministry of Economic Development, fixed-line density will continue its broader decline, falling to between 8.2 and 8.5 per 100 residents by 2029. In the interim, however, state institutions appear forced to rely on nineteenth-century technology to maintain basic stability in a twenty-first-century grid.
Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com
