> There was also quite a bit more advertising for the bigger brands, which leads me to believe they have to work harder to acquire and keep customers Nah, don'

> There was also quite a bit more advertising for the bigger brands, which leads me to believe they have to work harder to acquire and keep customers Nah, don't be fooled. Most of the time, The Big Three (MTS, Beeline, Megafon) have almost identical pricing. They have been under regulatory scrutiny for price fixing more than once. Besides, there are several ridiculous features here (like inter-regional roaming, when you pay significantly more in different cities). However, it's really easy to buy a sim card, and that's what many people do, they have a Moscow SIM card and a Saint Petersburg SIM card. Quality of data connection is usually about average, could be better, could be worse. FWIW, I live in a small city (<300k pop).