OREANDA-NEWS. September 13, 2012. The Federal Passenger Company, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, has launched a project to provide Wi-Fi Internet access to branded trains No. 167/168 Nevsky Express between Moscow - St. Petersburg, No. 153/154 Burevestnik between Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod, No. 31/32 Leo Tolstoy between Moscow - Helsinki and No. 59/60 Volga between Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod, reported the press-centre of RZD.

At the moment, one carriage of each type of included in the train (VIP, luxury, compartment, second-class, sitting, restaurant car) is equipped with Wi-Fi, which is available to owners of laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other devices which support it. The purpose of the project is to assess the demand for the service and its quality.

These trains were chosen for the test because a 3G communications network is being actively developed by Russian mobile phone operator MegaFon on these routes, allowing passengers to connect to the Internet. At the moment, MegaFon only covers about 85% of the length of each route.

The service is provided free of charge to passengers.

By the end of this year, the Federal Passenger Company plans to extend the project’s test area to include routes which currently lack a developed 3G network: Moscow - Astrakhan and Moscow - Samara.

The Service will be provided on the branded trains Lotus and Zhiguli by the companies STEK.COM and RuSat respectively, but use satellite communications.