Kommersant: Russian telecom operators opposed domestic LTE base stations MegaFon, MTS, Vimpelcom, Rostelecom and Tele2 called them unusable. Kommersant writes about this, with reference to a joint letter from the companies to the head of the Ministry of Tsifra Maksut Shadayev.
The reason for this appeal was the obligation to install only domestic equipment included in the register of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the construction of networks from 2023. Otherwise, according to the August decision of the State Commission on Radio Frequencies, operators will lose the right to use LTE frequencies.
The companies interviewed potential base station suppliers and began laboratory testing of their products. As it turned out, the devices did not show even the minimum required functionality. In this regard, the operators were unable to start field trials, without which it is impossible to prepare for the purchase of equipment.
Representatives of the companies confirmed the sending of the letter, but the Ministry of Digital Science says that the message has not yet been received. His representative stressed that the department supports any constructive dialogue with the industry, which will allow finding a solution that meets the interests of all stakeholders.
However, a source in the government, who managed to get acquainted with the letter, was skeptical about the position of the operators. In his opinion, they are trying to delay “the inevitable transition to Russian or localized equipment.” He also noted that no one prevented the operators themselves from working with Russian enterprises to debug equipment or create their own production with foreign vendors.
Alexey Boyko, an analyst at MForum Analytics, suggested that the companies' claims were completely justified, since the creation base stations for LTE is possible only after many years of development and investment of hundreds of billions of dollars. The conditions put forward by the Russian authorities, in his opinion, are simply impossible to fulfill.
Earlier, the State Legal Administration (GPU) of the President of Russia criticized the draft decree developed by the Ministry of Digital Industry on the transition of critical information infrastructure facilities to domestic software. The review says that the document does not assess the reality of the fulfillment of the requirements.