Mgts vs online: my experience

Rostelecom and MTS are large companies that have long been known in the Russian Internet services market. They are among the top three in terms of the number of subscribers. Choosing Rostelecom or MTS as a provider, it is worthwhile to study in detail the pros and cons of each of them.

It is rather difficult to say unequivocally which is better - Rostelecom or MTS. Rostelecom began to provide Internet access services much earlier, while MTS was mainly engaged in mobile communications. But today, both providers offer a full range of services, including home internet and digital TV. They attract customers with a variety of tariffs and packages, using various types of advertising. As a result, the user is faced with the difficult task of choosing: Rostelecom or MTS?

The price of basic tariffs is practically the same. But Rostelecom is ahead of the competitor in terms of traffic speed, breadth of territorial coverage and flexibility of tariff plans. The latter is especially attractive because it makes it possible to use the Internet for people with different needs for speed and financial capabilities. If we consider the average cost of services, then Rostelecom turns out to be slightly lower than that of MTS.

In order to better understand what to choose: Rostelecom or MTS, let's talk in more detail about each of the providers.

Pros and cons of Rostelecom

In addition to the above, the company's advantages include the fact that it offers high-speed Internet with several data transfer methods:

DOCSIS,
Ethernet,
GPON,
ADSL,
Wi-Fi, etc.

This advantage provides ample opportunities for creating wired and wireless networks, which is especially valuable in hard-to-reach places. Many providers refuse to work in them, while Rostelecom accepts almost all applications. The company's specialists are distinguished by their professionalism, they carry out the installation quickly and efficiently. By contacting the operator, you can always get competent advice and support on any questions.

Choosing home Internet from Rostelecom or MTS, you need to consider your own needs. Rostelecom offers dual and gaming internet at different speeds. The price of services is the lowest, starting from 250 rubles. In addition, the company holds constant promotions, which can be tracked both on their website and in the general directory of providers: https://internet.gde-luchshe.ru

In Rostelecom, the consumer has the opportunity to get not only stable high-speed Internet, but also interactive TV with a wide range of services, as well as purchase an inexpensive Wi-Fi router.

The disadvantages include:

periodic decrease in network speed;
technical failures and malfunctions.

Home Internet from Rostelecom

But these disadvantages are present, to one degree or another, with any provider. Users of Rostelecom or MTS are not insured against them either. The support service of the first company responds to requests quickly, eliminating problems in a short time.

Advantages and disadvantages of MTS

MTS has long gained fame as one of the leaders in the mobile communications market thanks to the GSM, UMTS and LTE standards. Today, in addition to this, it offers its consumers:

broadband Internet access;
several types of TV: digital, mobile and cable.

The territorial coverage of consumers is very wide: residents of about 80 regions of Russia use mobile Internet from MTS, and customers in 180 cities of the country have broadband access. Technologies are mainly used:

ADSL,
Ethernet.

GPON technology, which allows you to simultaneously use high-speed Internet, telephony and TV, is still available at MTS only to Muscovites and residents of the region, while Rostelecom already provides it throughout the country. Residents of the regions need to take this point into account when choosing which is better: Rostelecom or MTS.

The cost of a package of services starts from 250 rubles. Many interesting add-ons can be purchased, such as high-quality and inexpensive routers. Prices and promotions can be easily tracked on the company's website or in the already mentioned directory of providers.

MTS provides good quality services, the service department responds promptly to emerging problems. Another advantage of MTS is the increase in speed (even at budget tariffs) up to 100 Mbit / s at night. This is very convenient for certain categories of users.

The disadvantages of the company, according to customer reviews, include:

the emergence of service packages that were not connected;
price change without notifying the consumer;
instability of the Internet, especially mobile versions.

Conclusion

So, having analyzed the pros and cons of the two providers, you can draw your own conclusions, giving the advantage to Rostelecom or MTS. Based on personal needs and location, it is easy to select the options you want and compare prices.

MGTS wants to capture 50% of the capital's market for Internet access services. To do this, the company is ready to install fiber optics in every apartment and donate it to Muscovites via a Wi-Fi modem. But the first results of the attraction of unprecedented generosity are not impressive, and another telephone giant, Rostelecom, is breathing in MGTS's back.

Text: Yuliana Petrova

On the table of Dmitry Kulakovsky, MGTS Marketing and Development Director, is a rare 1940s government communications apparatus - iron, with a gilded USSR emblem on a dialing disk. This is a kind of symbol of stability: the USSR collapsed long ago, and MGTS is still a monopoly on the capital's fixed-line market. True, the company itself has not been owned by the state for a long time, and the fixed telephony market is stagnating: from 2008 to 2012, the volume of telephone traffic fell by 8% per year. Now MGTS is betting on new services - Internet and digital TV. By 2016, the telephony monopoly wants to conquer 50% of the retail broadband access market in Moscow and 25% of the Pay TV market. Since 2012, MGTS has been changing copper telephone cable for fiber optic throughout the capital and will spend $ 2 billion for this purpose by 2015.

The problem is that in Moscow the penetration of broadband access is already 82%, each Moscow entrance has a network of at least two or three providers. There is nowhere to get new clients of MGTS, except from competitors. At the same time, another telephone giant, the Russian fixed-line monopoly Rostelecom (the main shareholder is the state), has been actively involved in poaching other people's subscribers for three years now. He is also going to become the market leader. Who will win this battle of the giants?

On "Stream"

Dmitry Kulakovsky shows fresh MGTS brochures, rich blue, with photographs of young beautiful girls. Previously, the blue MGTS logo in the shape of an egg is made voluminous and colored with shades of purple. “It turned out more dynamically,” Kulakovsky is sure. Both the girls and the logo are the results of the recent rebranding of MGTS, aimed primarily at young people who consider the telephone operator a relic of the past.

Now MGTS serves telephones in 96% of Moscow apartments (3.6 million telephone numbers) and 48% of telephones in offices (about 800 thousand telephone lines). Its revenue for 9 months of 2013 amounted to 27.2 billion rubles, and its net profit - 9.9 billion rubles. Since the 2000s, MGTS has been under the control of the structures of AFK Sistema. Since the end of 2006, the long-distance operator Comstar-UTS has been the main shareholder of MGTS, and in 2011 MGTS became a subsidiary of MTS.

MGTS is a pioneer in the mass market for Internet access services in Moscow. Since 2004, it has provided its network to the parent company Comstar, the latter, under the Stream brand, sold Internet access services using ADSL technology (Internet over a telephone wire). At the end of 2007, MGTS presented its own line of tariffs for the "people's Internet". They were designed for a mass audience - people who are far from technical people who use the Internet from time to time. They collected all pensioners and reactionaries from the market, analysts joked.

However, ADSL technology quickly became obsolete. Its limit was 20 Mbps. By the end of the 2000s, other providers - VimpelCom, Akado and NetByNet - built fiber-optic networks, where speeds are 2-3 times higher. And the most demanding ADSL subscribers began to switch to "optics".

Rostelecom also took advantage of this trend. In early 2011, the company bought National Cable Networks (NCC), an aggressively developing provider of Pay TV and Internet access, providing services under the OnLime brand (then 4.4% of the capital's broadband access market).

Tariff Wars

A fat man with glasses, pale from night vigils at the computer, looks sadly at the monitor, waiting for the download of the file to finish. An Ethernet cable appears in front of him like a cobra:

- Are you going to hang out, Alyosha?

- Who are you?

- I have 20 megabit internet for 500 rubles.

Alyosha grabs the "Internet" and sticks it into the computer.

The ad, which was broadcast on all major TV channels, was NCC's first marketing campaign under the new owner. Rostelecom has drastically reduced tariffs: for example, the 500-ruble tariff advertised in the video for 20 Mbps used to cost 900 rubles. After the price cut, the tariff became 10-20% cheaper than that of Akado and VimpelCom, and almost 60% cheaper than Stream. In 2011, Rostelecom almost doubled its OnLime subscriber base. "70% of our new subscribers came from other operators," says Dmitry Bragin, CEO of NKS.

In the summer of 2011, MGTS also cut tariffs. Its minimum tariff is "Economical" for 2 Mbit / s for 145 rubles. per month was the cheapest in Moscow. Monthly revenue per user (ARPU) from MGTS was 250 rubles. with a market average ARPU of RUB 350 The lack of competitive high-speed tariffs hindered the company's growth in revenues. Then the general director of MGTS, a native of MTS Sergei Ivanov, launched a project to build a new-generation fiber-optic GPON network, the fastest in Moscow. The estimate dragged on $ 2 billion. It was about laying fiber optic from automatic telephone exchanges throughout the capital to each apartment by 2015 and increasing the speed in the future to 1 Gbit / s. The competitors' networks are built using fiber-to-building technology and provide subscribers with a maximum of 100 Mbps.

Anna Aibasheva, a representative of VimpelCom, assures that subscribers do not need such high speeds yet. A modern consumer needs 100 Mbps to use broadband access on several computers, play online games, and watch digital TV in HD quality.

211 thous.
of subscribers refused from ADSL-access "Stream" in 2009-2010. But the number of subscribers of the "people's Internet" ADSL from MGTS for the same period increased by 215 thousand (up to 335 thousand households)

"Jeponization" of all Moscow

In the summer of 2012, the sleeping areas of Moscow were flooded with an army of installers. Young men in overalls were drilling through the walls, cutting off old telephone wires and running fiber optic cables into their apartments. Throughout the city, they installed white Chinese-made boxes in apartments above the door. Through these devices, as the installers explained to the apartment owners, it is possible to connect not only a telephone, but also many new services: digital TV, video surveillance and fire alarms. And most importantly, the "box" is capable of distributing the Internet to several computers and wireless devices in the apartment via Wi-Fi at speeds up to 350 Mbps. MGTS purchased terminals for 1.7 thousand rubles. apiece, and for customers they are free.

And immediately complaints were poured into MGTS, Internet forums and Roskomnadzor. People complained that the installers did not show up at the appointed time or threatened to cut the telephone wires for those who would refuse GPON. Another attack - after switching to "optics" the phone stopped working. It turned out, in particular, that the network does not work well with pulse dialing, to which the telephones were configured - it was required to switch the phones to tone dialing mode.

Muscovites abandoned the new technology: why switch to GPON if the phone won't work better, but the Internet is already there? By the fall of 2012, MGTS connected only 45 thousand telephony subscribers to GPON. Then MTS, a shareholder of MGTS, dissatisfied with the results of the "jeeponization", replaced the general director of the subsidiary. In the fall of 2012, Andrei Ershov, ex-director of the MTS Ural macroregion, was appointed to this post. The new head of MGTS slowed down the construction of the network in order to deal with the accumulated problems.

First of all, MGTS got rid of unscrupulous contractors, and the rest began to be paid not on time, as before, but piece by piece - for the number of subscribers connected without complaints or delays. The number of complaints has decreased significantly.

Then Ershov started organizing customer service. "Earlier, you called MGTS with some kind of problem, the girl in the call center could only check the debt," Kulakovsky recalls. Now the subscriber is transferred from the call-center to the technical support service. "These are 200 engineers who solve customer problems by phone, without going home," says Kulakovsky. Most often, the problem can be solved remotely, and in other cases an emergency team will visit the client. The service is organized in a similar way for all metropolitan providers, but for MGTS this system has become an innovation.

Andrey Ershov hired eight partner call centers for rolling out calls to clients. They described the benefits of GPON to distrustful subscribers. By the end of 2012, out of 800 thousand Moscow households covered by the GPON network, 21% of telephony subscribers (167 thousand apartments) switched to "optics". At the same time, the network was being installed: by the end of 2013, it covered 2.2 million households - more than half of all Moscow apartments, and the number of connected subscribers reached 700 thousand people. True, there are much fewer users of new services: 43% of connected subscribers (300 thousand people) "subscribed" to broadband access from MGTS, and half were former MGTS ADSL subscribers. And 6% of the connected subscribers subscribed to Pay TV.

The competitors turned out to be right: very few people need ultra-high Internet speeds so far, only 3% of users have chosen tariffs from 100 Mbit / s. The service is quite expensive: subscribers of unlimited telephony MGTS are offered 200 Mbps Internet for 1.1 thousand rubles.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

Rostelecom treated MGTS's results with disdain: they say, they have entangled half of Moscow with networks, and the cat cried out about connections. But only at first - in the summer of 2013, Rostelecom began to patch up the gaps in its own network so that MGTS would not use them. For example, Rostelecom's network did not extend to the South-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow, numbering 430,000 households. Rostelecom had to pull fiber there. Since mid-2013, marketing wars began between Rostelecom and MGTS.

MGTS staked on package tariffs - Internet plus telephone. If a person uses an expensive unlimited telephone tariff (481 rubles per month), the company offers him serious discounts on TV and Internet. Another advantage is post-facto payment for services, in a single bill with the subscription fee for the phone.

In turn, Rostelecom has reduced the cheapest tariffs for OnLime by 25-30% for budget ADSL subscribers of MGTS: the 5-megabit tariff dropped to 200 rubles. per month. For comparison: the minimum tariff of MGTS "Internet GPON - 10 Mbit / s" costs 300 rubles. per month.

According to the company iKS-Consulting, in the first nine months of 2013 MGTS has succeeded slightly more than Rostelecom. MGTS attracted 115 thousand new broadband subscribers, and Rostelecom - 108.3 thousand people. Nevertheless, Konstantin Ankilov, managing partner of iKS-Consulting, notes that Rostelecom is growing its subscriber base faster than all Internet providers in Moscow (+ 27% compared to nine months of 2012). He believes that Rostelecom has successfully exploited the weaknesses of MGTS and the temporary passivity of VimpelCom and Akado. He primarily lured away disgruntled ADSL users. MGTS, in spite of the colossal investments, developed more slowly (+ 12%). The market share of MGTS remained the same - 26% (1.046 million subscribers), while that of Rostelecom increased to 13% (506.3 thousand subscribers).

Land baron

Now the load of the GPON network with new services does not exceed 15% of the built capacity, but by 2016 the company hopes to bring it to 70%. Since the fall of 2013, MGTS has stopped distributing "boxes" to everyone in a row, and installs them only to those who, in addition to the phone, immediately agree to connect to broadband or TV.

"Jeeponization" has already given the telephone monopolist an economic effect, although not related to its direct activities. MGTS was one of the largest real estate owners in Moscow. In 2004, its 561 automatic telephone exchanges covered a total area of about 1.6 million square meters. m. By 2011, the number of automatic telephone exchanges was reduced to 253, about 500 thousand square meters. m of vacated space were transferred to the structures of AFK Sistema. Now MGTS has 311 buildings with an area of 1.06 million square meters. m.

As a result of the transition to GPON, the number of core telephone exchanges should be reduced by four times. That is, about 700 thousand square meters should be vacated. m of area. And even if MGTS leases them, its income will be 6-7 billion rubles. in year. But the company intends to sell part of the premises. In the summer of 2013, MGTS spun off a subsidiary from MGTS-real estate, CJSC Business-real estate, to the balance of which it transferred 76 buildings with a total area of 182 thousand square meters. m. The buildings were selected on the basis of the fastest release dates and favorable location. And in December 2013, the controlling stake in Business Real Estate was transferred to AFK Sistema for 3.2 billion rubles. So the "jeeponization" of Moscow has already taken place - regardless of how many Internet and TV subscribers MGTS will pick up.

Alexander Shatikov, partner at AC&M Consulting:

- MGTS has a very strong marketing position due to the large number of telephony subscribers: the company can subsidize one service at the expense of another and make lucrative package offers. Today's MGTS tariffs are attractive for those telephony subscribers who pay for an unlimited or combined tariff. For other subscribers, MGTS tariffs are close to those offered by competitors (and sometimes even higher) - it will be difficult for MGTS to attract such users. This can be done only due to the good quality of the service, and the process will go slowly: broadband providers have a fairly loyal base.

Legal force
The share of MGTS in the business telephony market is 48%, and in the sector of data transmission services for legal entities - only 5%. MGTS expects to strengthen its position with the help of the provider "Taskom", purchased in 2012, which has more than 10 thousand corporate clients, as well as the largest Wi-Fi network in Moscow. In 2013, MGTS switched 9.5 thousand legal entities to GPON, of which 1.4 thousand companies "subscribed" to the Internet. MGTS expects to switch almost all tenants of the first floors of residential buildings to the "optical" Internet.

Pioneer of GPON
Rostelecom was the first to start building GPON networks in Russia in 2008; the operator has the largest number of connections in the Northwestern Federal District, Central Federal District, the Urals and Siberia. In 2008, 5 thousand households were connected to GPON in the country, in 2010 - about 200 thousand households. In the same year, Rostelecom announced that, due to the high cost of the project, it would lay GPON networks only in those large cities where it is economically feasible. In medium and small towns, it will continue to connect subscribers using "copper" DSL technology, and new networks will be built using less expensive "optics to home" and "optics to the block" (FTTB and FTTC) technologies. At the end of the third quarter of 2013, Rostelecom, according to its own data, had 3.5 million optics subscribers in the country. Until 2018, Rostelecom plans to install optical networks in 33 million households in the country and cover all houses above four floors. This will cost the operator at least $ 10 billion.

In our "digital" age, we can no longer imagine life without the Internet. And often without digital television. In large cities this is almost everywhere, in medium-sized ones - wherever, in sparsely populated areas, whatever you are lucky. So, a year and a half ago, we decided to join the benefits of digitalization. No, of course the Internet was in the apartment, but the TV did not reach. The choice fell on MGTS for a number of reasons. The checkout / installation process is fast enough, hassle-free, and boring. Further, the pleasant use of those same digital goods begins. This is the ideal. In reality, after a while, TV refused to show anything. I don’t remember in detail, but it doesn’t matter. The paid service did not work. A call in support of MGTS, the arrival of a repairman, a quick verdict (the decoder is dead), a replacement, and again that very happiness. But after a month or two ... yes, you guessed it. Again. Call - arrival - verdict - replacement - happiness. Can you guess? Right. We went to the third round. More precisely, they wanted to go. But they scored. Karma, you say? Well, maybe. And there was a decoder at home, gathering dust, there was no time for it. And recently, the digital itch started again. After all, I sometimes want to watch high-quality (digital) TV. The choice this time fell on Online. Personally, I have the most successful experience of communication and use with him, many years. And the cable was already in the apartment, it was simply not used. A call to Online, registration of an application, the arrival of a master, and hop! Router, infection, old, does not support digital TV. I went and bought a new one, everything worked right away. At the moment, "there is happiness", TV shows, the quality is excellent. The decoder, by the way, is a very small, very cool device. Moreover, the control is better than that of MGTS, and the decoder's remote control is tuned to our TV. The master helped, and now we have a two-in-one remote control, which is convenient. The story would be happily over, but it's not that simple. Remember the adage, one ruble is two ways in? This is about MGTS. It is foolish to pay a subscription fee for services that you do not use, and we naturally wanted to turn off MGTS TV and the Internet at the same time (Online is included in the package, Internet and TV). We were pleased with the support: it turns out that all this can be turned off only with a personal visit of the subscriber to the office. The subscriber is a mother who is over 70 years old. Moreover, on weekdays it is inconvenient for her to travel, she works, and on weekends you can only get into two offices, and both are far from us, especially for an elderly person. The reason for this obvious inconvenience for the subscriber is simple: to disconnect from the TV, you need to hand over the decoder. We solved the question, found a car, drove off, did everything. But I am surprised by something else: why is it so difficult to make the use of the company's services comfortable, so that I would like to use, and not terminate? Is it really so difficult to "finish" the equipment to make it work? Is it really so difficult not to strain the subscriber even in case of termination? The simplest thing that comes to mind is that craftsmen who travel around Moscow all the time, install / change equipment, may, along the way, pick up equipment from a subscriber who wants to terminate it. Just don't say that these are wild costs. With proper logistics, this is a penny. And the subscriber has already brought you these kopecks when he used your services! Don't you think so? Well, include this cost in advance in your subscription. Ruble, two, five per month. Enough with your head. You can make a paid fence of equipment, after all. Yes, there are many options.

What's in the bottom line? Headache with MGTS. What is the use, what is the quality of the equipment, what is the attitude towards customers. And (for now) pleasant communication with Online. TV and Internet work flawlessly. The prefix is better, the remote control is more convenient, the price is divine. What prevents MGTS from working in the same way? A rhetorical question, I guess.

Today in the market for the provision of Internet connection services are provided by several dozen providers of various sizes. Among the major ones are Rostelecom and MGTS. Which provider is the best?

Features of providers

Each of the providers has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses:

⦁ Monopoly. MGTS is a monopoly in the capital, therefore, in addition to the standard tariffication, it includes a telephone line service fee in the cost of using the Internet. Rostelecom, on the other hand, does not charge additional funds for servicing its cables; it is immediately included in the cost of providing services.

⦁ Technologies. Both providers use PON technology, which is distinguished by its efficiency, high speed of access, and also has many other advantages that positively affect the quality of communication and facilitate service.

⦁ Cost. MGTS, as a monopoly, does not seek to significantly reduce the cost of its services for the end user. Rostelecom, in turn, is doing everything possible to make their services as accessible as possible, thereby seriously competing with MGTS. The cost of Internet access from Rostelecom is much lower than that of MGTS.

⦁ Additional services. Both telecom operators, in addition to the Internet, provide customers with various additional paid services, for example, television and other interactive services. At the same time, the number of services offered by Rostelecom is much larger.

⦁ Customization. Rostelecom's Internet connection settings are much more flexible. They can be carried out without leaving home using a personal computer.

⦁ Coverage area. While MGTS is mainly focused on the capital and occupies more than 80% of the Moscow market, Rostelecom is focused on providing services throughout Russia and is gradually treading on the heels of a competitor, systematically gaining a share of the market even in the capital.

At the moment, Rostelecom is one of the main competitors of MGTS and, in the opinion of experts, can win the majority of the monopolist's audience.

You can find out about the possibility of connecting to the Internet in a specific city and at a specific address on the website rt-podkluchit.ru, which provides up-to-date information, as well as a special form, into which data about the place of connection is entered. The system independently analyzes the data and notifies the user about the possibility of connection.

Below is a small size, my opinion about this provider.

A few months ago I connected myself a wonderful service for a home user - home internet via optical fiber from MGTS, GPON... This was preceded by the forced transfer of the home phone to digital (the regional automatic telephone exchange is served by the same MGTS). Both the Internet and the landline phone from one GPON modem work, so I didn't even bother with it, I just connected the Internet to myself from my personal account in addition to the phone and brought the patch cord from the modem to the router.

Before MGTS voluntarily and forcibly came to my house, I used OnLime-Rostelecom 100100 Mbps for 700 rubles. And I liked it, I can’t say anything particularly bad, except that for the year in total there was a total downtime of 3-4 days. The problem with online and almost all other providers is that they got stuck at the beginning of the 2000s in the approach to building the "last mile" - i.e. home equipment for organizing your Internet. As soon as 100 MBits is no longer enough for you (and it happens) and you start looking for how to connect more, then a cheerful fact is revealed. Online deliberately crimps your final wire into the apartment so that it only connects 100 Mbits to the home router. I haven’t tested it, but for sure the router itself in the attic is no longer able to (or the speed is specially reduced). That is, it's time to look for another provider, don't jump higher.

At that time (2014), there were only two companies providing 1GBits connection to a home router and tariffs more than 100MBits in Moscow - 2KOM and MGTS with his GPON... 2KOM didn’t have such coverage, and my house wasn’t in their network. MGTS I was just starting my optical march through the city, and my house was in the plans for connection, but I still have to wait a few months. The rates, of course, were also impressive. As well as for all the "coolest" you have to overpay quite significantly, MGTS offers a maximum of 500 MBits for 1700 rubles per month. So I left this question until a later time, although I often remembered it when working with large amounts of data on the network.

So I connected myself 200 Mbit MGTS GPON and have been using it for 8 months at the time of writing. Today this tariff costs 1000 rubles a month. I won't say anything bad at all. Not a single blackout in all this time and no slowdowns. Of course, you need to include a little realism in yourself and understand that not all resources on the Internet can give you at least all 100MBits. The services of Yandex, Google, Microsoft are definitely capable of high speeds. One of these days I will connect 350 MBits, I will write down how the result will be.