Official overview
In mid-1993, mobile communications in Russia were at an early stage of development, and their use was limited, mainly due to high cost and insufficient infrastructure. This period was marked by the Russian economy's transition from a planned to a market economy, which affected the development of new technologies, including mobile communications.
1. First steps
In 1991, the joint venture "Delta Telecom" became the first operator to offer mobile communication services in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). On January 29, 1992, the company "Moscow Cellular Communications" was registered. Both companies operated analog networks under the NMT-450 (Nordic Mobile Telephone) standard. By the end of 1992, "Moscow Cellular Communications" had 2,410 subscribers, with 5 base stations in its network. In 1993 the company served 6,000 subscribers, with 19 base stations.
The main customers were businessmen and other wealthy people. Mobile phones of that period were bulky and expensive, which limited their popularity among the broader public.
2. Technology and standards
In mid-1993, Russia used analog networks based on the NMT-450 standard. These networks provided basic voice communication, but their capabilities were limited compared to the more modern digital standards that would appear later. The main feature of NMT was its high transmitter power, which allowed large areas to be served with a relatively small number of base stations. However, compared to modern standards, call quality was unstable, and the likelihood of dropped calls was high.
Unofficially
The cost of mobile communication in 1993 was high. Buying a phone could cost several thousand dollars, and the cost of service was comparable to an average citizen's monthly salary. It's also worth noting the high rates for calls and network connection. This made mobile communication an elite service, accessible only to wealthy people. The first cell phones sold for $5,000, a minute of talk time cost a dollar, with the first 5 seconds not billed. On some plans the first minute was free. The average salary in the USSR in 1991 was just over 300 rubles; from the end of 1990, USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the exchange of rubles for dollars, and from the start of 1991 this became possible for legal entities. As a result, the official exchange rate of 1.8 rubles to the dollar instantly rose to 30 rubles to the dollar.
From April 1991, every Soviet citizen was allowed to buy $200 a year at a fixed rate of 27.6 rubles. Starting in 1992 these restrictions were lifted, but the rate became purely commercial. Many have forgotten that starting in 1992, stores appeared where prices were listed exclusively in dollars. You'd walk into a shoe store in central Moscow and see prices of $40-50 for boots — that was a common sight. The average salary in 1991 was about $20 at the commercial rate. You could talk it away in twenty minutes — a very convenient way to think about it. A minute — a dollar.
Communication cost astronomical amounts of money and was available to only a select few. There was no question of SMS or anything like that back then, and pagers as a mass form of communication only appeared in 1993, when they became a mass substitute for phones, which were unavailable to almost everyone. Pager prices ranged from $50 to $200; the first models had no screens at all — they simply beeped and prompted you to call the operator, who would read the message to you. When text-display pagers appeared, they were a sensation — one line on the screen, and in Latin script at that.
Cellular networks developed in isolated pockets; from January 1992 the operator "Moscow Cellular Communications" appeared in Moscow, a joint venture with Americans, referred to in those years exclusively as Moscow Cellular. The early '90s was a time not only of dollar-denominated prices in stores, but also of reverence for anything with an English name. Sometimes you'd call a friend, and his secretary would answer: "Yopt, I'm listening." And it would turn out to be nothing more than Euro Business Trading.
The MCC network was built on the NMT-450 standard; phones at the time could store 99 numbers in memory, which was more than enough. An ordinary address book held at most ten numbers — there was no one else to call. Nikolai Pryanishnikov began his career at MCC as a project manager; in 1992 he said the company had 12 transceiver stations installed in Moscow (that's what base stations were called back then). By the end of the year there were twenty!
Nikolai would later head "Beeline"; this operator appeared in September 1992. In 1992 "Beeline" had three base stations, and network capacity was 600 subscribers; by the end of 1993 this was increased to 1,000 subscribers! To be fair, the "Beeline" trademark only appeared in 1993 — in the first year, service was provided by JSC "VimpelCom". In almost two years of operation, MCC attracted 4,500 subscribers; by the end of 1993 the network was adding 150 new subscribers a week. Consider the scale of these numbers — the only real limiting factor was the price of devices and the cost of the service.
A typical scene of the time at a trendy restaurant: an imposing man walks in, followed by two bodyguards in suits. In his hands is a hefty device, which gets placed on the table, because it's a symbol of the new life — a cell phone. Consumer society was taking shape in our country in the '90s, and that's when the habit arose of ostentatiously placing your phone on the table, since it was a status product that said a lot about its owner.
Besides having to buy a very expensive phone, you also paid a one-time connection fee, averaging around $1,000. Note that you also had to leave a deposit for using the service, and it wasn't small either! An itemized call log cost $15!
The era of cheap communication only began in 1999, when "Beeline" introduced the "little box" — a legendary product that launched low prices for communication. The cellular boom happened in the early 2000s; it was still expensive, far from accessible to everyone, but it had already become a mass phenomenon.