3G for the "Big Three&quot

3G for the "Big Three"

April 20 has finally come to pass something so long overdue - have been declared finalists for licenses to provide third generation services. Subject deployment in Russia of third generation networks discussed for quite some time already in 2003, began to talk about the development of next generation networks. For a long time, the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications Ministry did not give licenses to provide such a class. The main snag was the allocation of frequency spectrum, which resisted the Russian Defense Ministry. In October last year at one of the final meetings of the State Commission for Radio Frequencies (SCRF), where the decision was made about the possibility of frequency allocation for 3G, Defense perpetrate the scandal, opposing the licensing of third generation in the 1900-2200 MHz. Of course, were a reference to the possible damage the country's defense and the high cost of clearing the frequencies used by the military. The solution to this delicate matter postponed for a while. Nevertheless, in December last year, the commission still decided to hold a competition for the issuance of three licenses to provide third generation communication services. For more until the Defense Ministry did not agree, and then - with the condition that the winners will be required to coordinate with the Ministry of the equipment in each region, so it does not interfere with the radio-electronics war. But thanks for that, that have agreed to three licenses for 3G. Entries in the contest provided 13 operators, 7 of them were screened conducting competition committee at the first meeting, because of certain inconsistencies requirements to participate in the contest, which was originally put forward by the operators. Among the operators who are not eligible for the contest, there was also a major regional operator SMARTS, owing debts to the budget. This debt - it is dark, the operator did not recognize her and is going to litigate his expulsion from the competition. Other disposed to challenge the decision of the commission did not. At the finish line was 6 operators: VimpelCom (mark "Beeline"), "Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), MegaFon," Chelyabinsk Cellular Communications (part of the Tele 2), Aurora-Telecom "," New Telephone Company. Contestants were evaluated by the Commission on the amount of points which are charged on many parameters, such as the provision of cellular services in the territory of the Russian Federation (1 subject of the Russian Federation - 1 point), the availability of licenses for telecommunication services in Russia (total score also depends on the number of regions), the term provision of telecommunications services in Russia, the number of planned base stations, the speed of network deployment and the start date of service. With this approach, no doubt, who will be the winner, there was little. Everything speaks in favor of the "big three", that is, operators MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon. Some analysts have suggested that regional operators would have the chance to compete for the license, united in an alliance and submitting the application, peer-reviewed, but few believed it, because such an alliance to participate in the competitions required changes in the requirements for the participants. So it turned out - freshly Alliance JSC Network Company "was not allowed for competitions and was among seven retired. Results of the contest is almost no one was surprised - the winners were just members of the "big three". For the average user is not bad - a giant market of more resources for the rapid and large-scale network deployment. According to the contest, operators must begin to provide services not later than 2 years from the date of the decision to grant the license. On the question of a license fee of Ministry of Communications has come quite humanely - was taken into account the European experience of running networks of 3G, which led to the bankruptcy of a number of operators because of high fees for licenses. The fee for a license has not exceeded $ 100 thousand to $ 2.640 million rubles. Thus, operators will be able to spend a major amount not itself a license, and the introduction of networks. While winners do not apply too much about his plans, but some details still reported.All three operators are going to spend the next three years to implement and deploy network about $ 1 billion operator MTS plans to start test operation at the end of the year, and commercial - to the middle of next year. Network deployment in major cities will begin in the second half of this year. After starting the network, MTS will have access to high speed data transmission technology HSDPA. Megafon is going to begin commercial service next year. VimpelCom also charted as the date for the start of commercial services to mid-2008. According to analysts iKS-Consulting, the first years of users should not expect low-cost services, as the main driver of the popularity of 3G mobile Internet services will become. Given the experience of the operator Sky Link, Russia's largest provider of services based on CDMA, operators really worth the initial stage to provide exactly this capability, and cheap. They will have to compete with high-speed mobile Internet service from Sky Link, whose cost for services Sky Turbo (service based on EV-DO) at times up to 1 ruble per 1 MB. Lastly, it should be noted that the Russian mobile phone users already have on hand a fair amount of mobile phones with the ability of third-generation networks, and among them there are many communicators and smartphones. Thus, close to the day when these opportunities in the apparatus will cease to be a waste of money and be able to please their owners access to a new generation communication. The authors, translation:

K. Nemo