Belarus

Overview

Belarus (Беларусь), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.

The Belarusian telecommunications industry began in 1859 with the construction of telegraph communications. 

Belarus is a member of the Trans-European Line (TEL), Trans-Asia-Europe Fibre-Optic Line (TAE) and has access to the Trans-Siberia Line (TSL); three fibre-optic segments provide connectivity to Latvia, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine; worldwide service is available to Belarus through this infrastructure; Intelsat, Eutelsat, and Intersputnik earth stations.

Three mobile carriers provide cellular mobile telecommunications services: Joint Venture LLC "Mobile TeleSystems", Unitary Enterprise “Velcom”, CJSC "Belarusian Telecommunications Network". Cellular mobile telecommunication covers over 98% of the territory of the republic and 99.8% of the population. At the beginning of the 2017 there were more than 11.4 million subscribers in the country. 

The first 3G licence was issued in 2009 in 2100 MHz frequency band. In the beginning of 2016, as a result of spectrum refarming, B8 (900 MHz) 3G was introduced. This technology aims to increase mobile broadband coverage and enhance signal quality.

Belarus has an unusual method of deploying LTE services, whereby the government has elected a single infrastructure provider Belarussian Cloud Technologies (beCloud) to construct the physical LTE-A radio access network over B3 (1800 MHz) and B7 (2600 MHz) bands, which is in turn leased to the mobile carriers. This government initiative forms part of the Unified Republican Data Network. By the end of 2018 LTE technology is expected to be implemented in all regional centres and other residential areas with a population of more than 50,000 people.

Belarus is a member of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and as such follows radio frequency harmonisation principles according to ITU-R Region-1. The Ministry of Communication and Informatization, in particular, Republican Unitary Enterprise of supervision for Telecommunications “BelGIE” had been charged with regulating the telecommunications industry in accordance to ITU requirements.