TALLINN - Two Estonian businessmen are reportedly preparing to invest in the wireless data communication market in Russia. Former banker Priit Haller and his business partner Aleksei Sagun are preparing to enter the Wi-Fi market in Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod in conjunction with the firm Network Development, the Eesti Paevaleht daily reported last week.
"We are making preparations to launch operations first in Central Russian cities with more than 1 million residents," Sagun was quoted as saying. "In the future we intend to expand to St. Petersburg as well."Sagun declined to reveal more details about their plans.
Veljo Haamer, a Wi-Fi expert, was skeptical about the project, saying that wireless Internet was a suitable way to start business in cities but will most likely turn out to be useless in a year's time.
The technology of wireless Internet access is at the same time relatively simple and cheap. At the same time a signal can be sent to a Wi-Fi sender by the more powerful WIMAX technology, which can connect several Wi-Fi areas into one network.