Report: Rostelecom may spend 1.5 mln euros on SIM cards for MVNO

MOSCOW, Jun 16 (PRIME) -- Russian state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom could spend up to 1.47 million euros to buy 6.6 million SIM cards to provide standard mobile connection and more than 200,000 machine-to-machine (M2M) SIM cards, business daily Vedomosti reported on Friday on its Web site.

The operator is ready to pay up to 0.16–0.17 euros per ordinary SIM card, depending on the region of delivery, and 0.94–0.96 euros for M2M SIM card, according to the company’s tender documents.

Rostelecom plans to announce results on June 26.

The operator’s spokesman Valery Kostarev said that Rostelecom’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which works on the network of its half-owned mobile operator T2 RTK Holding, widely known under the Tele2 brand, is active in 65 out of the country’s 85 regions.

The MVNO was commercially launched in most of the regions in October–December 2016. As of the end of March, the project had 224,000 subscribers.

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