Fiber-optic telecommunication provider Transtelecom (TTK) won 20 of 24 wireless Internet licenses last week in three tenders organized by Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor.
In tender number 5/2011 on September 6, TTK obtained 13 out of 14 licenses in the 3,400-3,550 MHz frequency range, allowing it to offer WiMax services in the cities of Kostroma, Kovrov and Muroma, Sergiyev Posad, Yelets, Severodvinsk, Ukhta, Noyabrsk and Salekhard, Kamensk-Uralsky, Kopeyska, Volgodonsk and Novoshakhtinsk, Nefteyugansk, Tobolsk and Naryan-Mar.
Only frequencies in Velikiye Luki, a city in the Pskov region, have been allocated to another bidder, KVS. Other bidders were OSS Telecom, a Moscow based telecom company, and MegaFon, a leading Russian mobile operator.
Just three days later, in tender number 6/2011, frequencies in the same frequency range were allocated for cities in eight additional Russian regions. TKK also won 7 out of 8 licenses in the cities of Engels-Balakovo, Neftekamsk and Oktyabrsky, Achinsk and Kansk, Glazov, Mezhduurenchsk, Nevinnomysk and Beryozniki.
Frequencies in Vladikavkaz have been allocated to another bidder, Tvingo Telecom. “It is good to see that tender conditions were designed to allow alternative operators to really compete with big companies,” Tvingo general manager Igor Dziov said to ComNews.ru, a website covering telecom and IT issues.
In tender number 7/11, licenses for Chechnya and Ingushetia, two republics in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation, were allocated to local companies Vaynakh Telecom and IngushElektroSvyaz, respectively.
A $700 million investment
A subsidiary of Russian Railways (RZD), TTK currently operates and services the largest fiber-optic communication network in Russia. Laid alongside the railways, the network is longer than 53,000 km, has a network capacity of 560 Gbit/s, has more than 1,000 access nodes in all regions of Russia, and is connected to Europe and Asia. The company is one of three leading alternative operators of fixed line communications.
Having won 20 wireless Internet licenses, TTK plans to spend 20 billion rubles, or almost $700 million, on WiMax deployment to 2015 in order to serve a potential of 2.3 million subscribers, up from its 265,000 subscribers today, TTK president Artem Kudryavtsev told Russian business daily Vedomosti.
It may be a challenge, however, to attract so many customers using the 3.4-3.5 GHz spectrum, which is more suitable for hotspot network and corporate customers, said an expert to Vedomosti.
Expert dissensus
The Russian WiMax market is currently dominated by Scartel, working under the Yota brand. Among emerging competitors is Soyuz-Telecom, a WiMAX operator little known until recently.
Another important potential player on the wireless Internet market is Russian national telecom operator Rostelecom. The company received licenses in 39 regions one and a half years ago, but to date has not been able to deploy its network due to the reluctance of military authorities to surrender the frequencies, ComNews reminded.
In 2010, the Russian WiMAX market grew to 4 billion rubles, approximately $142 million, reported J’son & Partners. Considering the delays in LTE deployment, WiMAX is still the most advanced pre-4G solution available on the Russian market. But experts tend to disagree on the perspectives of this technology in Russia.
