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Business·2 min read

Russia's Internet Traffic Grows, but Mobile Usage Declines

Traffic at Russia's major exchange points is up by double digits in 2026, yet mobile data use is shrinking amid access restrictions and limits on Telegram.

Network servers and fiber cables at a data center illustrating growing internet traffic in Russia.
Image: Хабр
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Internet traffic in Russia is still rising in 2026, but the pace and the makeup of that growth have changed. Operators of internet exchange points say volumes passing through large hubs have increased noticeably. In the Piter-IX network, traffic reached 1.3 Tbit/s in September, 24% more than a year earlier. At MSK-IX, total traffic grew by roughly 13–17% over the first nine months of 2026, while peak values climbed from 8.3 to 9.4 Tbit/s.

Uneven growth across segments

Globalnet CEO Alexey Zakrevsky says the European segment of DataIX rose about 20% for inbound traffic (from 5 to 6 Tbit/s) and 15–25% for outbound (from 3.6 to 4.3 Tbit/s). Most of that increase came in 2025, he said, and traffic has since "reached a plateau". The Russian segment grew faster: inbound up about 55% (3.8 to 6 Tbit/s) and outbound up 40% (6 to 8.3 Tbit/s). Zakrevsky cautions that the data is indirect, since the Russian segment carries both domestic and some foreign traffic.

At Transtelecom, customer traffic rose 14% year on year over three quarters of 2026, and the share of foreign traffic increased from 29% to 32%.

Mobile moves the other way

Mobile consumption did not fall in 2025, but began shrinking in the first half of 2026 amid regular restrictions on cellular access, including in large cities. Experts cited by the business daily Vedomosti said the annual figure could drop 5–10%. Ecomobile founder Igor Zhilenko links the trend mainly to restrictions on Telegram, where users chatted but also watched video and uploaded files. Comparable volumes have not yet shifted to Max or other apps, he said.

What drives the totals

Comnews Research partner Leonid Konik expects overall traffic to grow at least 20% in 2026. He names acceleration tools, including VPN-type services, access to open-source repositories, frontier AI models from China and the US, games and software updates as drivers of international traffic. He noted that the global release of GTA 6 on 19 November 2026 will dominate Russian networks for several days.

Domestic traffic is also rising thanks to sovereign AI models, more video cameras and new online services. Konik added that Russian resources often skip cache servers and CDNs, sending data to each user over long routes. Transit traffic from Asia to Europe across Russia is growing as well, though operators know leased channel capacity, not actual data volumes.

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Tags:russiainternet trafficmsk-ixtelegrammobile internetgta 6

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