Russia’s Rostelecom to agree soon to work as MVNO on Tele2’s network

MOSCOW, Feb 10 (PRIME) -- Russia’s T2 RTK Holding, a cellular operator working under the Tele2 brand, will sign within the nearest months an agreement with its main owner, state-controlled Rostelecom, on implementing a model of a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Svetlana Smirnova, Tele2’s director for strategic planning, told reporters Wednesday.

“I can say that the negotiations are at the most active stage. We see that we’ve done good progress that is why I think you’ll hear news during the coming months. In general, not so many issues are left,” Smirnova said.

The agreement will enable Rostelecom to provide cellular connection services on Tele2’s network and sell them in a package with fixed line services, broadband and pay TV.

Rostelecom earlier estimated its subscriber base potential as of an MVNO operator at 2.5 million clients by 2020.

Smirnova said that the MVNO project will be launched “in a huge number of regions.” “For Tele2, it’s a chance to cover a wider segment of population and work with it,” she said.

Tele2 is satisfied with results of working on the Moscow market, which it entered in October 2015 and where it has accomplished the bulk of its investment program regardless of the difficult economic situation.

The mobile operator has no troubles from a lack of GSM frequencies. “Ahead of entering Moscow, we had some worries, but we saw that Moscow has a much deeper penetration of smartphones and devices supporting data transfer than in regions. In general, we have no problems because of a lack of 2G now,” the executive said.

“We continue growing and now service more than 1 million (subscribers). We feel good,” she said.

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