Russia MegaFon, VimpelCom to use LTE resource in 10 regions jointly

MOSCOW, Jan 26 (PRIME) – Leading Russian mobile operators MegaFon and VimpelCom, working under the Beeline brand, have signed an agreement on a joint development and exploitation of LTE networks, which stipulates that 4G new base stations will be deployed in 10 regions, MegaFon said Tuesday in a statement.

The operators will share construction and use of base stations costs. The companies will launching the joint network from July.

Alexander Bashmakov, director for infrastructure at MegaFon, said that about 40% of the operator’s subscribers surfed the mobile Internet in September 2015 and 40% of their mobile traffic was transferred via LTE.

“The merged network of MegaFon and Scartel has the widest range of frequencies within the 2,600 megahertz band and the realization of a Radio Access Network (RAN)-sharing project with VimpelCom will allow us to expand our infrastructure harmoniously within the 1,800 MHz range in the most effective way,” Bashmakov said.

Martin Shkop, executive vice president for infrastructure development at VimpelCom, said that the number of LTE-supporting devices more than tripled in 2015 in the network, and LTE traffic quadrupled.

“We expect the trend of a growth in mobile data consumption will only strengthen in 2016,” he said.

VimpelCom agreed in December 2015 with mobile operator MTS to use frequencies in 20 regions jointly.

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