Megafon Mission

Day after day since the founding of "MegaFon," we put into life the motto "The future depends on you." At the very beginning, we tried to look into the future carefully by surveying the most accurate predictions of developments of the mobile communication industry. In those days, only one-eighth of the residents of Russia had a mobile phone. Talking on a cell phone was thought to be an expensive pleasure. It must be said that the telephone, regardless of brand and model, automatically accentuated the high standing of its owner. At the turn of the Millennium, we tried to imagine digital life five, ten and even fifteen years later. Рerhaps we were able to grasp the most important essence: that tomorrow's world is a world of the global economy, that it will feel a strong need for social and cultural integration, and will certainly be dominated by high technology and high-speed decision-making and life. This simple, and at the same time amazing awareness inspired us and compelled us to fully focus on the development and introduction of advanced mobile technologies in Russia. Our goal was to give people the possibility to communicate with each other in the rhythm of the XXI century, despite the physical borders and distances between countries and continents. All these years we developed the company and strove to make mobile communications more democratic and available for all social groups, and for all consumers, even if they live in the most remote parts of Russia. Today, when we recognize that this country rapidly left behind many of the dynamic development stages and became one of the world leaders in mobile penetration, we realize how right we were several years ago. In the first days of life of our company, the spirit of our leadership and their innovation created a special "MegaFon" atmosphere which gave us an ability to achieve all of the ambitious goals dictated by our mission: to unite Russia, to break down barriers to society and to develop communication.

Oleg Nikolaenko, Director for Cross-Sector Projects:

I remember well when I saw a cell phone for the first time. It was a huge "brick" that cost several thousand dollars and weighed several kilograms. Those days it was hard to imagine that very soon this device will conquer the world and everyone will have it. We also have a share of merit in that it happened so fast. We gave people a chance to become closer to each other and made borders between them nominal. For that it is difficult not to be pleased.

Facts and figures:

Every 11 hours the amount of information transmitted on the World Wide Web doubles. Morning, April 12, 1961 at 9:07 a.m. there was an event that rocked the whole world. The first man said, "Poyekhali (Let's go)!", and went into space from the "second launching pad". June 17, 1946 in St. Louis (USA), the mobile phone service AT & T and Southwestern Bell provided the first radiotelephone services for private clients. Cordless phones that used this system weighed 30-40 kg and were intended only for installation in cars and used on conventional fixed channels. In 1947, Douglas Ring, an employee of Bell Labs, proposed the use of low-power transmitters located in the prescribed service areas to create a mobile communication system. But the decision of the Federal Communications Commission to limit the number of frequencies of radio spectrum for mobile communication delayed the development of this idea until 1968.