Russia's top three mobile operators have sent a letter to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asking him for transparency in the allocation of frequencies for the development of the fourth generations networks, a letter obtained by RIA Novosti said on Friday.
Russia's Defense Ministry holds the bulk of the country's frequencies while in developed countries most frequencies belong to private companies.
Russian media have said that the Defense Ministry has suggested awarding Long Term Evolution (LTE) frequencies covering the whole of Russia to a company set up by it and a private businessman without a tender.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov suggested to President Dmitry Medvedev that his ministry create the 4G network alone and Medvedev ordered him to work the idea out with the Telecommunications Ministry.
The "Big Three" operators - Mobile TeleSystems, MegaFon and VimpelCom - asked Putin to change legislation to allow them to use frequencies, including GSM, CDMA and MMDS, allocated for other communication and television technologies, to develop LTE networks.
The companies also requested to legally permit them to use frequencies they possess to develop any technology at their discretion.
The letter said the operators were worried by information about plans to allocate frequencies in favor of newly created small companies. They said that the creation of a nationwide LTE network would require $5-7 billion and 5-7 years which small companies could not afford. The Big Three said that the firms were created to resell the frequencies they will get.
The companies have already sent a letter to Telecommunications Minister Igor Shchegolev asking for transparency in LTE frequencies allocation.
The State Frequencies Commission was to consider setting up LTE test zones on July 2, but failed to do so because of differences of opinion regarding the allocation of frequencies between the Defense and the Telecommunications Ministries.
"The LTE issue is very important for Russia and we thought it our duty to say again that the allocation of frequencies for the LTE must be as transparent as possible," VimpelCom spokeswoman Anna Aibasheva said.
MOSCOW, July 23 (RIA Novosti)
