Displaying items by tag: MTS

Russian mobile operator MTS has launched a 5G zone at VDNKh (All-Russian Exhibition Center), one of Moscow’s major attractions. Equipped by Huawei and functioning on the 28GHz and 4.9GHz frequency bands, the network became operational on Thursday.

It will test so-called Smart City technology, designed to improve security and urban services management, as well as helping to develop Moscow’s transport system.

The agreement between MTS and Huawei was signed in June during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

5G is speeding up the development of self-driving vehicles in Moscow together with other future technologies, according to Eduard Lysenko, Head of the city’s Department of Information Technology: “Moscow is looking into the implementation of telemedicine and IoT technologies in city services which require a secure and fast connection”.

While the super-fast network is currently available around only one of the pavilions in the VDNKh complex, the pilot zone is expected to expand and cover almost the whole of the VDNKh area by 2020.

Owners of 5G-capable smartphones will be able to enjoy super-fast internet connections after the network’s commercial launch, as the first phone connected to the network demonstrated an internet speed of 1.2Gbps. This means it will take around one minute to download a full HD movie.

Moscow’s first 5G zone was launched earlier this month and covers the famous Tverskaya Street. Swedish telecom company Ericsson provided the equipment for the network, which is run by Russian mobile operator Tele2. By the end of this year, Moscow is expected to have four pilot zones, each operated by one of Russia’s four major telecom providers.

Greece-based Intracom Telecom, a global telecommunication systems and solutions vendor, announced that jointly with MGTS, one of the largest wireline telecom operators in the CIS (Commonwealth of Dependent States), a member of Russia’s MTS Group, successfully completed the tests of Intracom Telecom’s Virtualized Wi-Fi Services Platform, thus making MGTS one of the first operators to adopt such technologies for their corporate customers.

The pilot deployment was performed at MGTS’ testing center, where Intracom Telecom’s Virtualized WiFi Services Platform, harnessing the power of SDN & NFV technologies, provided virtualized network functions (VNFs) over Wi-Fi Access Points used in MGTS network. MGTS customers can now extend the functionality of their existing on-premise Wi-Fi equipment, enjoying features such as fast network services deployment, full management automation and access to historical usage data, all through a specially designed, user-friendly web-interface.

MGTS corporate customers can monitor Internet traffic consumption at every point and if necessary change the usage rules for their guests and employees. This is especially interesting to organizations with geographically distributed networks, while their IT teams may now immediately adjust and update the necessary services in one or several branches simultaneously.

“Virtualization technologies today seem to be the most profitable and promising option both for operators and their subscribers. The solutions that we have tested and plan to deploy next year, will allow MGTS corporate customers to scale up their own networks and develop additional Wi-Fi services with minimal investments”, commented Mr. Alexander Trokhin, Technical Director, PJSC MGTS.

Mr. Spyros Sakellariou, SDN/NFV Portfolio Manager at Intracom Telecom added: “Intracom Telecom has been investing in the SDN & NFV domain for the last 3 years. The solution we have developed is unique in the whole world and enables MGTS to capitalize their existing Wi-Fi infrastructure by providing additional services to their customers. We are happy that the successful “Proof of Concept” in MGTS testing center proved the capabilities and advantages of our solution in a real Network environment.”

MTS, the largest telecommunications operator in Russia, and Ericsson, have agreed to upgrade the network of MTS. Ericsson will deliver the newest software features that will be continuously developed during the next three years.

The scope of the agreement also includes 5G-ready radio hardware, Ericsson Radio Systems and core network with the latest Ericsson Mobile Softswitch Solution (MSS), as well as User Data Consolidation (UDC), providing consolidation of user data for all network functions.

These solutions will upgrade the mobile networks for 2G, 3G and 4G. In addition, MTS will prepare the network for 5G with Ericsson software for Massive IoT solutions, including NB-IoT and Cat-M1 technologies. This enables a wide range of IoT use-cases including metering and sensor applications.

The agreement supports MTS’s strategy of preparing the network with 5G and IoT-ready hardware to enable a fast commercialization of these technologies. The deployment starts Q4 2017 and total value of the contract is expected to exceed EUR 400 million.  

“In April 2017, in Moscow our company demonstrated 5G technology with peak data rates up to 25 Gbit/sec,” said Andrey Ushatsky, MTS Chief Technology Officer. “Now we have reached an agreement with Ericsson, which will supply MTS with new equipment enabling our network to deploy first solutions based on 5G technologies starting 2020.”

Andrey added, “After upgrade, MTS network will provide higher data rates, increased capacity and low latency. These characteristics are critical for IoT and digital services that we are starting to implement today.”

According to the latest edition of Ericsson Mobility Report, many operators will deploy 5G commercially from 2020, in line with the time plan for 5G standardization. In 2022, the number of 5G subscriptions is forecasted to reach more than 500 million.

The adoption rate of 5G mobile broadband is expected to be similar to that of LTE, and rollout will commence in major metropolitan areas, reaching around 15 percent population coverage by 2022. 5G will enable a wide range of use cases for massive IoT and critical IoT.

“Early deployment of IoT and 5G technologies positions Russia as an early adopter of the most advanced ICT solutions,” said Arun Bansal, Head of Ericsson in Europe and Latin America. “Ericsson supports MTS in the company’s goals to meet growing capacity needs and be ready for huge opportunities that will come with 5G and IoT.

Bansal added, “5G will be a major technology in booming industrial digitalization, creating and enhancing industry digitalization use cases such as immersive gaming, autonomous driving, remote robotic surgery, and augmented-reality support in maintenance and repair situations.”  

The announcement represents a milestone in the large-scale commercialization of IoT and 5G technologies in Russia. It follows the agreement of an extensive 5G Memorandum of Understanding signed by MTS and Ericsson in December 2015.

To further demonstrate the capabilities of 5G and IoT technologies, the two companies will roll out 5G demo zones during FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Together with MTS, the largest mobile network operator in Russia, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, Ericsson has conducted the first successful live trial with a commercial small cell product of Rel-13 Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in Russia.

The demonstration was conducted in an MTS test lab over a live network and used Ericsson’s Pico RBS 6402 small cell and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE mobile test device. With LAA, data speeds are boosted using unlicensed spectrum together with licensed spectrum.

The amount of licensed spectrum is limited, and the need for spectrum is huge. The latest Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that smartphones will be using 11 Gigabytes of data a month by 2022. This puts enormous strain on operators to meet the demands for performance in mobile connectivity for their subscribers.

“Delivering the level of mobile connectivity our subscribers expect, across a wide variety of environments, is a primary focus of MTS,” said Andrei Ushatskiy, MTS Vice President, Technology and IT. “This successful demonstration is the first of its kind in Russia, and shows our commitment to exceeding our customers’ expectations with enhanced experiences.”

Yulia Klebanova, vice president, business development, Qualcomm Europe Inc., said: “LAA enables more operators globally to offer Gigabit LTE, which is an essential foundation when introducing the 5G mobile experience, and we look forward to working with infrastructure vendors, OEMs, and network operators to advance mobile connectivity for subscribers across the world.”

Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President, Europe & Latin America, Ericsson, added: “LAA uses unlicensed spectrum to boost data speeds, offering subscribers the chance to enjoy enhanced LTE experiences on their devices. This technology allows LTE and Wi-Fi users superior performance in both indoor and outdoor environments by sharing the spectrum in unlicensed bands.”

Ericsson’s RBS 6402 is a high-performance indoor Pico Cell offering three standards (LTE, WCDMA and Wi-Fi), 10 frequency bands and up to 300 Mbps LTE carrier aggregation. The flexibility, cost-effectiveness and performance in a tablet-sized footprint make it optimal for smaller buildings.

Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and MGTS, one of the largest operators of local wire communications in Europe, recently presented a new strategy of technological development for 2017-2020 in the Moscow region, to prepare for 5G standard.

MTS and MGTS will strengthen joint cooperation in development of mobile and fixed internet access. MTS plans to increase the number of base stations connected to GPON from 25% to 40-45%. This decision will allow MTS to use the resources of mobile infrastructure on maximum and also will improve quality and stability of customer services.

MGTS intends to launch mass adoption of XG-PON (10GPON) in its network in 2017. This will allow MGTS to become a digital platform for mobile operators at transition to 5G. First 10GPON test zones will appear in 2017-2018 at the most loaded parts of the network. The 10GPON transition is planned to be completed by 2020.

The companies will continue to cooperate in testing of 5G standard. This year MTS will conduct testing of pilot zones of the "fifth generation" standard, which will be launched during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

In April this year, MGTS will test interoperability of Nokia's 10GPON and 5G-technologies. MTS and Nokia have already successfully tested 5G technologies during which the speed of mobile data transmission reached 4.5 Gbps, which is by times higher than the upper speed limits of existing mobile and fixed internet access standards.

"Our cooperation in the network development in the Moscow region gives us plenty of advantages in improving speed and quality of infrastructure as well as in optimizing capital expenditures the final beneficiaries of which are our customers who receive high speed internet," said Igor Egorov, Director of Moscow region, MTS.

"In relation to 5G technology development, MGTS's fixed channels of 10GPON standard can become a basis for rapid construction of a new generation mobile network in the Moscow region", added Igor Egorov.

"We are standing on the cusp of global fundamental changes. The 5G standard will give momentum to evolve robo mobiles and gadgets supporting AR and VR as well as to the whole IoT market and М2M decisions," said Andrey Ershov, CEO, MGTS.

"New technologies will lead to multiple increases in traffic that will become a new challenge for telecommunications operators and will require raising network capacity many fold. Today we are working on the decision that will provide MGTS with an opportunity to retain a position of the technological leader for decades and to lay basis for the soonest adoption of innovative services in the Moscow region."

GPON and XG-PON technologies interoperability tests were launched on Huawei equipment in MGTS suitability testing center. The testing has positive results: both GPON and XG-PON standards coexist on the same distribution network. Maximum downstream speed achieved during testing was 8.5 Gbps.

Following a corruption probe by U.S. regulators, Mobile TeleSystems PJSC, commonly referred to as MTS, Russia’s largest wireless mobile carrier, announced it will sell its majority 50.1 stake in Uzbekistan’s Universal Mobile Systems (UMS) to the Uzbek government. Some sources believe it’s a move by MTS to avoid fines related to the U.S. investigation.

“Due to a variety of business reasons and other circumstances, MTS decided to sell its stake in the joint venture UMS LLC,” said MTS vice president Andrei Smelkov in a statement on Friday, August 5. Uzbekistan is to become the full owner after purchasing the 50.1 percent stake MTS held. According to reports, MTS will write off about 3 billion rubles ($46 million) due to the sale in its Q3 results. Data from AC&M Consulting says the subscriber base of UMS totaled 1.3 million at the end of March – equal to 6 percent of the total Uzbekistan mobile subscriber base.

MTS once provided its mobile services under the MTS Uzbekistan brand through the subsidiary Uzunrobita, which boasted a subscriber base of 9.3 million in 2012. The subsidiary was accused of unpaid taxes by the government then and its license was suspended and then revoked. Uzunrobita declared bankruptcy in 2013. MTS finally resumed its services in Uzbekistan in December 2014 after founding the joint venture UMS with the state.

MTS’s sale of UMS to the Uzbekistan government has been linked to an investigation by the U.S. Ministry of Justice and securities regulator SEC is investigating three Uzbekistan mobile operators - MTS, VimpelCom and Telia – for possible corruption in obtaining licenses through connections with Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan. Some sources suggest that MTS’s exit from Uzbekistan could be an attempt to avoid fines related to the investigation.

Nokia and Russia’s leading telecommunications operator MTS Group have signed a collaboration agreement that will create a strategic path to the realization of 5G technology and the management of the ever-growing demands of connected people and devices. The companies will deploy a test network during an international sports event in Russia in 2018.

It is estimated that the Internet of Things (IoT) will result in 10 to 100 times more connected devices than people, creating technological challenges, but also opportunities, for new services and applications. With this in mind, MTS has outlined a roadmap to evolve its networks to 5G.

"MTS is developing a roadmap for the evolution of its networks taking into account the complexity and scope of the challenges to be solved when implementing the 5G standards,” said Mr. Andrey Ushatsky, vice president and chief technology officer at MTS Group.

“We are excited to leverage Nokia's technology to help us transition to 5G and take full advantage of IoT,” he added. “The joint projects and trials we will undertake will enable us to meet future data demand in the most effective way, and we look forward to showcasing this work in 2018."

Together with Nokia, MTS Group will develop test projects that leverage 4G technologies such as LTE-Advanced Pro as well as 5G to enable faster speeds, lower latency and new spectrum efficiencies. In 2018, the two companies will implement a 5G test network in a Russian football stadium to allow fans to experience innovative video and other services during the major event being staged there.

Testing will focus on implementation of LTE-Advanced Pro features such as enhanced carrier aggregation and LTE-broadcast. Testing will also focus on coverage and capacity improvements using LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) and Licensed Assisted Access (LAA); innovative IoT projects using Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), LTE-Machine (LTE-M) and Extended Coverage GSM technologies; demonstrations of 5G and dual connectivity of LTE and 5G technologies in the centimetre band; and lastly deployment of a 5G test network.

"We are at the forefront of 5G development, focused on delivering solutions that will prepare today's networks for this technology,” says Wladimir Ulianow, head of CBT MTS at Nokia. He added: “As a result, we can help operators such as MTS to evolve smoothly and efficiently to the programmable world."