“Yota” started testing its WiMAX network in Sochi. “Skartel” operator, owner of Yota brand, have launched WiMAX networks (IEEE 802.16-2005, 2.5-2.7 GHz) earlier this year in Moscow and St.-Petersburg (where they now cover up to 70% of city), and in Ufa in the beginning of this month.

The beginning of beta testing in Sochi and Krasnodar was announced two weeks ago. Yota selected 250 testers in Sochi, and 350 people in Krasondar – the capital of region where Sochi is located. Network coverage in Sochi is already available on Yota’s website, and according to it they currently cover only most of Central district and center of Adler.

So, soon Sochi will join very small number of cities in Russia where hi-speed wireless internet is available.

Btw, WiMAX Forum – Russia will take place in Moscow next month.

About a week ago domain name Sochi.ru – which hosted popular city portal with forums, classifieds, events calendar, news, etc. – was transferred to Organizing Committee “Sochi 2014”.

Why and how this happened is a bit of a mystery. Originally, on August 19, an announcement was posted on the website that the popular portal will move to a new domain – Sochi.com, and included statement that “by the order of the Government of the Russian Federation administration of domain name Sochi.ru goes over to the Organizing Committee “Sochi 2014″”… but later that sentence was removed from the announcement.

Neither Organizing Committee nor previous owner commented this to the media. Most news agencies quoted head of PR of the Ru-Center, .RU’s official domain names registration center, mentioning the “Olympic Law”, which basically makes anything with Sochi Olympics logo and other Olympics-related symbols (and that includes domain names) property of the Organizing Committee. However, not only that makes no sense, since Sochi.com is not much different from Sochi.ru in this respect, but also only combinations of “Sochi” and “2014” fall under that law — this was discussed and explained at the time when this law came into effect.

But this is a done deal – WHOIS info already shows “Organizing Committee “Sochi 2014″” as Sochi.ru’s registrant, and the copy of the original portal already spinning at the Sochi.com. According to the original announcement, anyone who has @sochi.ru email address and all third level domains will exist until the end of this year.

I wonder what project will spin at this address next.