St. Petersburg mobile operator requires CDMA frequencies for network
Radiotelecommunications Company, a regional mobile carrier with operations in four cities in the Leningrad region, has owned a license to operate a network in the lucrative St. Petersburg market for three years now, but has not yet been allocated frequencies to commence operations.
The Company runs a CDMA service branded Petrosvyaz servicing some 7,000 subscribers.
According to a report in the St. Petersburg Times, the Company has secured funding from its shareholders in order to set up a network, but still lacks the required frequencies.
The Communications Ministry is claiming that there are no available 800 megahertz frequencies, but the Company’s chief executive, Igor Petrov, claims the problem is primarily political and not technical.
A possible solution for the problem is acquiring frequencies allocated to another player, St. Petersburg Telecom, which has been delaying the launch of its own CDMA network dubbed FORA for over a year now. Acquiring FORA’s CDMA frequencies could clear the way for launching Petrosvyaz CDMA services.
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