Road closures: One fifth of highways will not be covered by mobile internet
Mobile Internet will not be available on about 18% of Russia's highways — this is about 12 thousand km, follows from the materials of the State Commission on Radio Frequencies (GCRF), which Izvestia has reviewed. It is planned to remove the obligation from operators to cover approximately 1.5 thousand road sections where the use of cellular equipment is impossible due to the lack of an electric grid infrastructure. Road coverage was one of the conditions for issuing LTE licenses to operators, however, in 2025, the state has already allowed operators not to provide Internet on part of the routes, experts noted. Experts see the development of satellite Internet access technologies as a solution to the problem.
Which routes were allowed not to be covered by mobile Internet
The government may specify the requirements for operators to cover roads with LTE networks in the Amur, Bryansk, Arkhangelsk, Leningrad, Irkutsk regions, the Eastern Administrative District, Magadan and Trans-Baikal Territories, Karachay-Cherkessia and many other regions. This follows from the materials of the State Commission on Radio Frequencies (SCR) for the meeting scheduled for the end of March. Izvestia has reviewed the document.
According to the minutes of the meeting of the expert commission at the State Emergency Committee, it is proposed to exclude 1,566 road sections from the obligations of the Big Four cellular players for LTE coverage (their geographical coordinates are given in the materials of the State Emergency Committee).
Their length varies greatly: for example, the length of the section on the A-360 Lena highway is 143 km, and the section of the A-120 St. Petersburg Southern Semicircle road is 4.2 km long, calculated by Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research. According to him, the total length of 1,566 sections of federal highways can be estimated at about 12,000 km. The expert drew attention to the fact that some of them (about 1.6 km long) had already appeared in the first decision of the State Emergency Committee on the cancellation of coverage obligations issued in the summer of 2025. The list was clarified in December and approved for 821 sites, the Ministry of Finance told Izvestia.
It is impossible to cover them with mobile Internet, because in these locations it is impossible to connect cellular equipment to the power grid, as explained in the materials of the State Emergency Committee.
According to Rosavtodor data for 2025, the total length of federal highways was just over 66.2 thousand km, that is, it is planned to remove from operators the obligation to cover the Internet on about 18% of these highways. At the same time, illumination, and hence the easy availability of electricity, is present on federal highways only for about 18% of their length. In all other cases, operators need to look for alternative connection points.
Covering 99.9% of federal highways was one of the conditions for issuing LTE frequencies to the Big Four cellular operators in 2011 and extending these permits in 2021. However, as the interdepartmental working group under the Ministry of Finance, established in 2023, found out, the infrastructure necessary for the construction of LTE networks in the most sparsely populated and extended regions is only on certain sections of highways. In this regard, in such regions, part of the federal highways cannot be provided with LTE coverage, according to the materials of the State Emergency Committee.
— A significant part of the above-mentioned 12 thousand km of federal highways falls on regions such as the Tyumen Region, Khabarovsk Territory, etc. In many ways, the work of experts over the past years has been aimed at clarifying the possibility of obtaining access to electricity in such regions in order to minimize the number of uncovered areas," said a source familiar with the managers of several mobile operators.
The number of excluded sections of trails is increasing due to an increase in the number of surveyed regions. On June 30, 2025, when the State Emergency Committee first removed some sections of highways from LTE coverage obligations, their total number was 70, that is, 22 times less, Leonid Konik noted. In all areas where the State Emergency Committee wants to remove obligations from operators to cover LTE networks, there is no possibility of connecting base stations to power supply within a radius of 100-400 m, he said.
— The absence of electrical networks along many federal highways has been known for a long time. Until regulators of the communications and fuel and energy markets begin to act together, many thousands of kilometers of federal roads will remain without mobile Internet. And this carries a direct risk to the life and health of drivers and passengers," the expert believes.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Energy.
How are they planning to provide highways with Internet
Work on covering federal highways with LTE networks is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Finance, the department stressed. By the end of 2025, each of the operators has provided coverage for more than 70% of the total length of federal highways, which corresponds to the established schedule: they are required to connect 80% of the routes in 2026, and 99.9% by 2031.
— At the same time, the LTE coverage requirement does not apply to highway sections that are not provided with the necessary infrastructure. For example, in those places where there is no possibility of connecting to the power grid, it is impossible to ensure the operation of base stations in such places. Before being included in the list of exceptions, each site where there is no connection was thoroughly examined to make sure that there really is no electricity on it, the Ministry of Finance clarified to Izvestia.
The regional authorities need assistance in solving this problem, they believe.
— At the end of 2025, the State Emergency Committee decided that within the framework of a special interdepartmental working group, the issue of confirmation by the heads of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation of plans for the construction of energy infrastructure where there is none and the technical connection of communication facilities to the electric grid will be worked out. A number of regions have already expressed their willingness to allocate funds for these purposes," the Ministry of Finance added.
T2 is aware of the upcoming decision of the State Emergency Committee.
— Operators regularly inspect uncovered sections of trails and sign agreements with the subjects on the possibility of building base stations there. In the case of a positive decision, the segment falls within the obligation to establish a communication facility. If the conclusion says that construction is impossible, the location passes through the filter of the expert group under the Ministry of Finance and eventually falls into the exceptions approved by the State Committee for Emergency Situations," explained Daria Kolesnikova, a representative of the company.
Currently, operators cover at least 70% of the trails. According to her, it is impossible to achieve 100% coverage, due to the fact that there are sections of highways where there is no necessary infrastructure, primarily access to the power grid. Taking into account these limitations, according to various estimates, it is possible to achieve 80-85% highway coverage, Daria Kolesnikova believes.
By the end of 2025, MTS had provided coverage for more than 47,000 km of federal highways, the operator's press service told Izvestia. The main difficulty in building infrastructure along the routes remains the lack of power lines in some areas, they added.
— To solve these tasks, MTS cooperates with federal and regional authorities, relevant departments and network organizations. The company plans to cover public roads of federal significance with LTE until 2031 in accordance with the schedule of the regulator and if the necessary infrastructure is available, they noted.
Vimpelcom and Megafon declined to comment.
It is possible to solve the problem with Internet coverage of federal highways by extending the concept of "universal communication services" to their LTE coverage and subsidizing these works from the state reserve of universal service (all operators of all types of communications in the Russian Federation, without exception, annually deduct 2% of turnover to it), Leonid Konik believes. Another option for ubiquitous connectivity of road sections that it is unprofitable for operators to cover commercially is satellite Internet from low orbits, he added.
Lack of electricity is not the only factor limiting the Internet coverage of highways, it is often unprofitable for operators, there are immeasurably fewer subscribers on the roads than, for example, in cities, said Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. Attributing the road surface to universal communication services would be a logical step, he agrees. The expert recalled that low—orbit satellite groupings are currently being created in Russia, designed specifically to connect remote and hard-to-reach areas of the country to the Internet, for example, the Rassvet of Bureau 1440. Their development will help solve the problem of the lack of cellular access to the Network, he believes.
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