Mass Usage
In 1990—1991 Relcom's network was rapidly expanding, it joined EUnet and was used to spread news about the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 worldwide while coupers through KGB were trying to suppress mass media activity on the subject. After the fall of the USSR many former Soviet state-controlled structures were inherited by the Russian Federation, vast telephone networks among them. With the transformation of the economy, market-based telecommunication industries grew quickly, various ISPs appeared.
Meanwhile, the first Russian FidoNet node reportedly started in October 1990 in Novosibirsk, and the USSR was included in FidoNet's Region 50. Russian FidoNet activity did contribute to development of Runet, as mass-networking over BBSes was for a time more popular than over the Internet in the early 90s.
By the mid 1990s, computer networks (where TCP/IP was replacing UUCP) appeared in many branches of regular life and commerce in Post-Soviet states. The Internet became a popular means of communication for anyone in the world who spoke Russian. National so-called Nets of former Soviet Republics began to occur (e.g. Uznet, Kaznet and others).
In October 2007 then Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced that all of the schools in Russia (about 59,000) were connected to the Internet, but later concerns were publicized that there were problems with a contractor to serve them. Also in December 2007, as a follow-up to the noted Ponosov's Case, which dealt with the use of illegal software in a Russian school, plans were announced to officially test Linux in the schools of Perm Krai, Tatarstan and Tomsk Oblast to determine the feasibility of further implementing Linux-based education in the country's other regions. In subsequent years test results were considered successful, but new organizational problems appeared, including obscurities with distribution of funds assigned by state.
Read more about this topic: Internet In Russia
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