"Innopolis" ate money allocated for the project of the Russian satellite Internet for the "people"

In 2012-2013, 4.7 billion rubles were allocated from the federal budget through the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media for the construction of the Innopolis Innovation Center in Tatarstan. The decision to build was taken in the summer of 2012 after the appeal of the President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The project was actively promoted by Nikolai Nikiforov, who in the same year moved from the chair of the Minister of Communications of Tatarstan to the post of Minister of Communications of Russia.

Source: dreamstime.com

However, the federal budget of 2012 did not initially include funds for the construction of Innopolis. The Ministry of Communications and Roskomnadzor have found a total of 2.7 billion rubles from other budget items. Roskomnadzor managed to save 540 million rubles in 2012 on expenses for the conversion of the radio frequency spectrum. For its part, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media has saved 2.2 billion dollars on the implementation of projects approved by the Commission under the President of Russia on modernization and technological development of the economy.
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In particular, the Ministry of Communications passed to the needs of Innopolis 2.03 billion rubles. This money was included in the 2012 budget for the implementation of the project “Providing high-speed access to information systems through satellite access systems”. And in 2013, the state allocated another 3 billion rubles to the innovation center - these funds were planned to be paid into the budget.

Earlier, in 2009, the leadership of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, headed by Minister Igor Shchegolev, initiated the creation of a satellite system operating in the new for the space communications of the K-band. Such a system would allow the provision of broadband Internet access services at affordable prices for the population. The cost of equipment for connection to the network should have been 8 thousand rubles, the cost of transferring 1 GB of information - 50 rubles. The network was supposed to reach 2 million users.

The project budget was 17.22 billion rubles, of which the federal budget was to allocate 4.64 billion rubles. But from 2009 to 2011, in total, the state spent only 1.6 billion rubles on this initiative. By 2013, the project was supposed to be implemented. The trial provision of services was to begin in 2011 with the help of airplanes in the Ka-band, installed on the Express-AM4 satellite. However, the launch of this device was unsuccessful. And in 2012, RTKomm.ru (a subsidiary of Rostelecom ) addressed the Ministry of Communications with a letter “about the impossibility of further project implementation due to increased payback periods and the need to increase capital expenditures”.

During the implementation, all the 1.6 billion rubles allocated to it were fully utilized, but these funds were used to create only various kinds of documentation: a system project, a business plan, working and design documentation, sketches of spacecraft, software development materials and more. .

A source of CNews among the former leadership of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media calls the refusal to implement the project of “popular” satellite Internet access a “big mistake”. “It was a political decision of Nikolai Nikiforov, who decided to transfer funds to Innopolis,” said the source of CNews. - We had a unique opportunity to have time to take a place in the development of the Ka-range. Now, when Western giants like Eutelsat show interest in this range, Russia again wants to engage in this area. ”