Rapid expansion of Internet in Russia is restrained by the necessity to lay cables for great distances to cover the vast expanses of the country.
At present, an information signal is transmitted via main cables, power lines, fiber optic cables, telephone lines and satellite networks. Only the last three methods are suitable for long-distance transmission, but construction and operation of long-distance fiber optic and telephone lines is very expensive. The same concerns satellite transmission.

Image: Mary Soroka

Russian inventors from the company “National Radio Technical Bureau” found a new simple and inexpensive method for information transmission for great distances. They proposed to use oil and gas mains.
The idea itself is not new but previously it was proposed to use a double line was proposed as a communication line, one of the lines being an isolated gas line and the other line being ground.
The novelty consists in that a signal is transmitted directly via a pipe. This is possible because prior to being transmitted, an electrical signal is converted into an alternating magnetic field and transmitted via a ferromagnetic pipe in the form of an alternating magnetic flux.
Since the pipeline system covers the entire country, it is very advantageous to use it for information transmission.

Source: http://www.sciteclibrary.ru.