Federal service gives green light to outdoors 3G networks in Moscow

MOSCOW, January 9 (Itar-Tass) -- The Federal Service for Supervision
in the Field of Information Technology and Mass Communications
(Roskomnadzor) has issued permits to the top three telecom companies for
launching high-speed 3G communication networks in Moscow not only indoors
and the metro but also in outdoors.
The permits were issued at the end of December 2009. Now the telecom
companies have to register their radio equipment with Roskomnadzor.
"It depends on the operators when this technology becomes actually
available," the Ministry of Mass Communications, which supervises
Roskomnadzor, said.
Earlier, the leading telecom companies said the new 3G technology
might begin working in Moscow by the new year.
Wireless 3G technology, which transmits data at a speed ten times
higher than that of GSM networks, has become quite popular in many
countries of the world. Russia's first 3G network was created in St.
Petersburg in 2007. It then quickly spread to the rest of the country.
However in Moscow, its use was restricted by military and other special
authorities.
In the spring of 2009, the top three telecom companies - MTS,
VimpelCom and Megafon - received permits for the use of 3G technology only
indoors and on the metro.
The introduction of 3G technology was accelerated by President Dmitry
Medvedev who had instructed the Ministry of Mass Communications and the
Defence Ministry to speed up the conversion of radio frequencies for
public use.
Medvedev called for intensifying the transfer of radio frequencies
from the military to civilian uses.
He said the use of new radio frequencies "is undoubtedly a promising
area of work, and we should start preparing ourselves already now for the
creation of a new generation of domestic spacecraft".
"We still have a rather impressive potential in terms of converting
radio frequencies that are now used mainly by the military," the president
said.
"Not as much has been done here so far as we would like, and this work
should be intensified," Medvedev said.
"However the situation is beginning to deteriorate with the onset of
3G technology," he admitted. "All these generations are not available
everywhere, and it [3G] is not available in Moscow, but we are already six
to eight years behind" or maybe "more".
-0-zak/