For the deployment of 5G operators of Russia must unite and attract 1 trillion rubles

Investments in new generation networks will grow significantly. Deployment costs will quadruple the cost of building 4G networks. Andrei Zimenkov, director of the Rostelecom sales and service channel management department, told about this at the Wireless Russia Forum . He, in turn, referred to the opinion of analysts of The Boston Consulting Group. So, in Russia for the deployment of 5G networks will need about 1 trillion rubles.



“With difficult access to capital and low customer solvency, each operator will not be able to solve this problem alone,” he stressed. This will lead to the creation of a consortium or a single infrastructure operator. Unlike LTE, 5G will require substantial network densification (30–50 times), an increase in the number of base stations, and, as a result, the actual merging between mobile and fixed networks will occur, Kommersant reports , citing Zimenkova.



“In order to effectively develop 5G networks and optimize investments, operators will need to look for opportunities to join efforts,” agrees Tele2 representative Konstantin Prokshin. But while the form of cooperation is not clear, since the issue has not been worked out deeply.



The supplier of ZTE equipment also supports the idea of ​​the consortium, Tigran Poghosyan, senior vice president of ZTI-Svyaztechnology, told Kommersant: “It is possible to create such an infrastructure operator both on the basis of one of the operators and on the basis of in the tower market. "



The government of Moscow is also ready to make a contribution to the development of high technologies, which has been discussing this proposal with operators since March.



A single communications network infrastructure operator may be created in Russia for the development of 5G networks, admits Nikolay Lukashevich, the senior director and head of the corporate division of Fitch Ratings in Russia and the CIS. According to him, European operators are now also discussing the idea of ​​creating a single infrastructure project and do not exclude the creation of a consortium for the development of 5G.



The Ministry of Communications and Mass Media approves the initiative and will decide on the allocation of the frequency spectrum for 5G as early as 2018, said Deputy Director of the Department of Radio Frequency and Communication Networks of the Ministry Dmitry Tur. “For the time being we continue to explore bands, including possible unlicensed radio frequency bands,” he noted. According to him, the world's most promising for the early deployment of 5G ranges 27-40 GHz.

In 2016, MTS announced that it had tested 5G, achieving a data transfer rate of 4.5 gigabits per second.

On May 25, it became known about plans to create a 5G network in the Republic of Tatarstan. The authors and performers of the project are Rostelecom, Tatar operator Tattelecom and the government of the republic. Within six months, the parties intend to agree on an action plan and the amount of investment.



According to the draft program “Digital Economy”, submitted by the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media to the government, in 2019, regulatory acts governing the use of these technologies throughout Russia should be adopted. In 2020, 5G communication networks should be introduced in all Russian cities with a population of over one million, and their “widespread commercial use” is planned for 2024, Kommersant reports.



5G will be one of the most sought after technologies in the near future. New generation networks will be actively used in such areas as the Internet of things, smart city, smart home, smart transport, for fixing and transferring parameters and data from various devices and sources.