Vladislav Medvedev, technical director of MTS’s Moscow region, stated that MTS has completed the project to rearm UMTS 2100 frequencies within the Central Ring Road (CRR) of the Moscow region by the end of 2023.
It was noted that within the scope of the project, all 3G base stations in the 2100 MHz range (UMTS 2100) were transferred (re-agricultural) to the LTE standard. The company claims that in this way, mobile internet speed and network capacity in Moscow and large regions of the region increased by an average of 30%. At the same time, MTS plans to completely disable the UMTS 2100 network in the rest of the region from 2025.
“Now almost all 3G base stations in this range over large areas have been transferred to the modern LTE standard, providing our millions of subscribers with an increase in Internet speed and network capacity by almost a third. Medvedev noted that MTS will continue to rearm the 2100 MHz range to completely transfer the remaining locations in the Moscow region to 4G from 2025.
According to him, MTS customers with old 3G devices that do not support LTE will not be left without communication. “They will continue to use voice and data services in a different range – UMTS 900 MHz, whose coverage exceeds UMTS 2100. Over the last two years, we have significantly expanded the scope of UMTS 900, which makes rearmament completely invisible. subscribers,” Medvedev added.
Thus, in 2023 in the capital, including New Moscow, and in the region within the Central Ring Road, the share of LTE 2100 base stations fully transferred from UMTS was 99% in December, compared to 78% at the beginning of 2023. . Last year, more than 930 sites in total switched to the LTE 2100 standard, and the share of 4G base stations previously operating in 3G increased from 75 percent a year ago to 84 percent by the end of 2023.
In addition, on the basis of MTS subscribers, the penetration of 4G devices in the Moscow region reached 76% by the end of 2023, while the share of 3G devices without LTE support remained below 2%.
Let us recall that MTS has been installing LTE 2100 networks in 49 regions of Russia since 2018. At the same time, the company plans to start rearmament of UMTS 2100 in 11 more regions in 2024.