Since 1996 Sonera has been offering commercial services in Russia. They inherited outdated technology, strong involvement of local political authorities in operations, command structure, overcapacity of employees. They are joint stock companies, however, most of the shares are controlled by the state. Each bigger city has up to four mobile phone operators and covers only the city area and some highways.
Associations exist for each standard and coordinate national Roaming.
There are hundreds of internet providers - most of them just renting some capacity from a bigger internet provider.