Russia's internet shutdowns push state firms back to landline phones

Russian state-owned companies spent more than three times as much on landline telephones from January to August as in the same period of 2025. The jump shows ministries and businesses looking for alternatives to disrupted networks, with mobile internet shutdowns now affecting nearly 80% of the country. The figures were reported by the Russian business daily Vedomosti, citing public procurement data.

Spending reached 118 million roubles (€1.26 million), while the number of purchase tenders rose by 12.5%. The purchases are concentrated in the country's largest business and infrastructure hubs.

Why demand is rising

Market participants cited several factors: the mobile internet restrictions; a switch by Russian ministries and companies to domestically produced software-based PBX (private telephone exchange) systems after Western vendors left the Russian market following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; and demand for secure communication channels.

How the shutdowns developed

Russia began systematically cutting mobile internet access in May 2025, when services went offline in more than 40 regions ahead of Victory Day celebrations. What began as occasional outages soon became routine. An independent monitoring project recorded 655 mobile internet outages in June 2025 and 2,099 in July, a figure that, according to analysts, exceeded the worldwide total for the whole previous year. The disruptions have affected banking, taxis, food delivery and navigation, especially in rural areas.

Authorities justify the shutdowns as protection against Ukrainian drones, which they say are guided by mobile internet signals. Experts dispute this, saying drones can fly preset routes without a network connection, and the shutdowns have also reached regions far from the front line.

Landlines regain relevance

In March, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked how restrictions in central Moscow affect the work of the president's office, said the presidential administration uses landline telephones. Soon afterwards, Mikhail Oseyevsky, head of the state telecoms company Rostelecom, urged Russians to return to fixed lines, comparing them to a fire extinguisher that every home should have.

Russia has about 12.2 landline telephones per 100 residents. In Moscow, around 2 million households use fixed lines from MGTS, the city's main telephone operator, while nationwide there are about 17.4 million urban household landline connections. The Ministry of Economic Development forecasts that the number of landlines will fall to between 8.2 and 8.5 per 100 residents by 2029.