At least according to "Alex" there isn't anything mysterious or even spy-tastic about this xmit station. It's a localized military transmission tower for the Moscow region. I am unsure of the correct terminology, but it seems the men in charge of strategic military installations within the Moscow region are permitted to broadcast messages from this station as required. Why it remains in use despite its age and unsophistication is because the tower provides a more stable communication source than more modern methods - clearly from it's performance record we can agree.

Contra to the summary, this is not some kind of monopolist ploy for customer domination. It's simple really. It's all about money. The legal team at Rogers realized (or got sued and settled) that in case of a carrier provided phone fails to operate as expected during an emergency, while Rogers having full prior knowledge of this fault and having done nothing, could foreseeably be held for damages and some kind of punitive measure. Car Analogy: You're driving a car that comes with OnStar. A manufacturer fault with OnStar may cause the car to suddenly turn off if you press the "OnStar help" button. Car Manuf issues a recalls. Know that they can't reach all customers with any urgency or certainty, they remotely disable your radio, lights, etc with the expectation that you'll notice those problems immediately and bring your car in for service regardless if you are aware of the recall. (Not exactly the best analogy, but basicly.....)

Not to be completely off topic, but I think the print cartridge companies would have better luck if they incorporated a "lab on chip" style spectrometer in the print head of every cartridge. That way, only the "patented ink formula" could be used in the cartridge, any other kind would signal the print head to stop. In this effect, they'd lock out all re-fillers until they could recreate the ink formula exactly which would be no small task (or cheap - their only selling point)