Phones and internet of all sorts

All right - let's get the main points covered:

a) yes, there are mobile phones here (GSM/UMTS standard and some others) as well as normal phones (good old ground copper-wire lines).

b) yes, you can access internet here (the way of doing it depends on location and cash you're willing to spend for it). And for those of you who's been hyped about Skype, yes, if the connection is decent Skype works pretty much nicely.

c) yes, there are hotspots for your Wi-Fi enabled notebook or PDA (not only NOT FREE, but kinda too expensive, our opinion).

Now, let's get down to the details.

Normal phones

Something like half of apartments and absolute majority of offices have the normal phones. Russia's code is +7 or 007 for dialing from abroad. Novosibirsk's code is 383. Novosibirsk's phonenumbers are 7 digits now. Recently they were 6 digits, and the city code was 3832. So, if you have some old record of telephone number, it will most likely look like xx-xx-xx. The way of deciphering it into new xxx-xx-xx format is this if the first digit was 1 or 2 - add 2 as new first digit. If the first digit was 3 and higher - add 3 as new first digit. Example - old number of 11-11-11 is now 211-11-11. Old number 44-44-44 is now 344-44-44. Hope you got it. So, to dial from abroad you should dial +7 383 xxx-xx-xx.

Dialing your home country on fixed line is different - normally you have to dial 8 (wait for tone) - 10 and THEN your country code+area or network code+phonenumber. So, calling for example UK would be - 8 10 44 xxxx xx-xx-xx. Doing same from the mobile phone is plain easy - 'plus'+your country code+area or network code+phonenumber. Dialing UK would be +44 xxxx xx-xx-xx.

Mobile phones

There are 4 GSM-900/1800 operators here, one of CDMA-450, and there are redundant (they don't sell anymore) networks of NMT-450 and NAMPS-800. Most obvious choice is GSM - these are national carriers (Beeline, MTS, Megafon), with roaming available in most regions of Russia (restrictions and rules apply), there is also another smaller operator called Tele2, also operating in GSM standard.

Two of the operators, Beeline and MTS, launched recently their 3G subnetworks (UMTS standards), which greatly helped the internet speed when accessing via mobile network.

You can either use your GSM phone here in roaming (if on short visit) or obtain local SIM-card and use it while in Novosibirsk which is way cheaper. There is no point to write here on 'where you can get a SIM-card' cause the answer is 'basically everywhere'. The market is growing vastly, and it is huge industry, so nearly on every corner you can get a contract with any of the operators or buy the paycards (sorry, forgot to mention, most of them operate on pay-as-you-go basis, contracts are mostly for companies).

Internet

Depends on where you are. At home you normally get it by dial-up (again, you can get virtually on every corner the paper envelope or plastic card with username and password vaild for internet access within limits of how much you prepaid).

There is also growing industry of ADSL and leased line market, so the chances are your apartment might be within the range one or another network is covered with ADSL or leased line availability. The same you can do at the office, though most office buildings offer leased line connection to the internet, check around or ask in neighbouring offices.

You can also use GPRS/EDGE/3G (GSM subsystem), to access internet from your PC using your GSM phone as modem (the phone should be GPRS/EDGE- or 3G-enabled) or buying specifically 3G-modem for that. Speed is a little slower than dial-up on GPRS/EDGE, but compensates by mobility - can surf from office, home, cafe etc. And if you connect to 3G network - it works wonders, and the speed is great.

There is a CDMA analog to GPRS/EDGE - and it works faster, comparable to 3G. The operator is called SkyLink.

And talking about cafes and internet - the hot spot outbreak is only in the beginning phase here. So there are some places where internet is available via Wi-Fi, BUT in most cases it would be on fee basis. At the moment we've heard only about Il-Patio and Travellers coffee offering free Wi-Fi. The largest 'pool' of places where you can put your Wi-Fi computer for a good use is the Riss-Telecom project offering access in about 20 public places (but you have to buy paycard with password to use it for limited amount of internet traffic). These are:

Bars/Restaurants/Fastfoods - People's, Grill-Master, Classica, Galereya Coffe, Tinkoff, Vostok-Zapad, Mangusta, Kara-Kum, Depo, Sushi-Terra, NYP, Traveller's Coffee, Zhili-Byli, Terek, Champivon, Western, Beloye Solntse Pustyni.

Other places - Veselaya Keglya (bowling), Public Library GPNTB, Planeta Kino, Pioneer, Aurora (cinemas), Main Railway Station, Lesnaya Skazka, Ob (hotels).

May be there others, may be for free or for less, but we're not aware of them.

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