“Our goal is to create a seamless customer experience”

Regional Director of PJSC VimpelCom (Beeline brand) in the Western region, Dmitry Glotov, in an interview with RBC + Petersburg, spoke about why it is difficult to build a cellular network in the metro, but it is necessary, whether mobile Internet is in demand in the subway and whether data consumption continues to grow. traffic after lockdown ends.

— In 2020, the company launched several major network development projects in St. Petersburg. You paid special attention to the infrastructure in the subway. At which stations is the Internet already available?

- At the time when we started work on creating a network in the subway tunnels, there was already communication at the stations - both voice and mobile Internet. The network worked in the lobbies, and on the escalators, and on the platforms themselves. Now, after we have completed our part of the project, communication from Beeline has become available on the red, blue and orange lines, as well as on nine of the eleven hauls on the green line - in the section from the Rybatskoye station to the Primorskaya station.

— This infrastructure project is quite costly, including in terms of investment volume. Why is it still interesting for the company?

— The fact is that in St. Petersburg the metro is the most popular type of public transport: more than 2.5 million passengers use its services every day. Based on the activity of our subscribers, we can see that half of them use metro services every day and spend more than 30 minutes there. We set ourselves the task of creating a seamless customer experience in terms of coverage, from entering the surface part of the metro, descending underground, boarding the car, and exiting back to the street. To do this, we used modern technologies: along with the fact that voice and high-speed mobile Internet are available in all tunnels, features such as VoLTE [Voice over LTE technology - ed.] are also available there. Petersburg is a strategic city for us: it was there that we were among the first to launch new technologies.

- What are the statistics of the demand for data transmission services in the Beeline network in the metro?

— Of course, we monitor how our subscriber base reacts to the appearance of the network in the tunnels. 47% of the subscriber base already use communication services in metro tunnels. If we talk about traffic, then it has grown six times from May to the present moment. Mobile Internet in the metro is available at speeds up to 100 Mbps - this is enough to satisfy any need of the subscriber - whether it is watching high-quality video in an online format, listening to music, online gaming, surfing social networks, sharing content, etc. Further.

47% of the subscriber base already use communication services in metro tunnels. Traffic has increased 6 times from May to the present moment.

- What is the difference between building infrastructure on the ground and building underground, in the subway?

— The St. Petersburg metro is a unique facility in everything, from its design and construction to the way it has become now. And if you look at the public ratings, then, for example, the Admiralteyskaya station is located at a depth of 86 meters - it is in the top 3 deepest stations in the world. And if you look at the ranking of the 10 deepest metro stations in the world, then 6 of them are located in St. Petersburg. This shows how unique our subway is. It is with this uniqueness that the complexity of carrying out work in it is connected.

So far, we have only talked about the vertical component, but the horizontal component must also be taken into account - the length of the hauls. So, the length of the Obukhovo-Rybatskoye section is 3.6 km, so this is the second longest subway section in RUSSIA.

Another difference of the St. Petersburg metro is that it has two types of stations - open and closed. Examples of the latter type are Vasileostrovskaya and Petrogradskaya. Therefore, when we implemented our technical solution, we had to adapt it to each type of station.

If we talk about other difficulties that we encountered in the implementation of the project, then, of course, we had to take into account that the metro is a strategic security facility. And this is absolutely correct, given the passenger traffic that passes through it. We were allocated only three hours a day for work at night. During the 9 months in which we carried out construction and installation work, we stretched 346 km of cable of various types, installed 210 tunnel groups. On average, we placed half a kilometer of cable per hour.

In 9 months we have laid 346 km of cable, installed 210 tunnel groups. On average, we placed 500 m of cable per hour.

- On the red line, you deployed a network in just six months. This is a very short time for such a serious project. What made it possible to get through so quickly?

- The first is the quality preparation of the project and the elimination of all comments at the stage of preparation. Our experts relied on the best world practices for creating such objects. The second is the well-coordinated work of the teams that participated in the construction and installation work. These are Beeline's technical directorate, and our partner HUAWEI, with which we implemented the project, and the relevant metro services, which exercised clear and competent control. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in the implementation of this project, which is very important both for the residents of St. Petersburg and for the guests of the Northern capital.

— The project to provide communication for the St. Petersburg metro is also interesting in that it involves the exchange of access between three operators who were building their network at the same time. Has Beeline completed its part of the work?

“Beeline has completed its part of the project: our area of ​​responsibility had a red line and 9 out of 11 hauls on the green line. In total, we have deployed a network of 103.6 km of tunnels.

- What is the volume of investments in this project?

- The total investment of Beeline in this project amounted to more than 1 billion rubles.

The total investment of Beeline in this project amounted to more than 1 billion rubles.

— What other infrastructure projects were implemented by the company last year, and what are your plans for this year?

— In 2020, we implemented a number of projects, and some of them ended only in this one. An important project was the completion of the modernization of the network in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region: the equipment was replaced with a more advanced one. The second project is a seamless coverage of the M-11 Neva highway with mobile Internet and voice services. Also, a large project was implemented to improve mobile Internet coverage in the Leningrad region in places popular with St. We paid a lot of attention to the program to improve coverage in large shopping and entertainment complexes, business and shopping centers - there are more than 30 of them in total. Last year the program started, and this year we are completing it.

As for plans for the current year, we are now in the phase of active implementation of the program to increase the capacity of our network. Mobile Internet traffic is growing: compared to last year, it increased by 50%. Let me remind you that last year was atypical: covid began, self-isolation led to an avalanche-like increase in traffic. But even to the indicators of the record last year, we have grown by 50%. Therefore, the main task now is to compact our network so that subscribers do not feel any congestion.

Self-isolation led to an avalanche-like increase in traffic, but even against the record last year, we grew by 50%. Therefore, the main task now is to compact our network so that subscribers do not feel any congestion.

The second direction is connected with the development of new districts of the city. New residential complexes appear, and our task is to come there with communication facilities so that our subscribers do not feel any discomfort from moving from the old housing stock to the new one. And we see the results: against the background of such an increase in traffic, the data transfer rate only increases.