Tele2 Russia

Company Overview

Tele2 Russia (Tele2 Россия) is the fourth largest mobile network operating in the Russian Federation. The company was founded in 2001 by the Swedish group Tele2 following a series of mergers and acquisitions with smaller networks. The company operates in over 65 regions within the Russian Federation, providing high speed mobile broadband services to over 60 regions.

In March 2013 Tele2 Group decided to exit the Russian market, selling its subsidiary Tele2 Russia VTB Group in April 2013 to a collection of private investment firms. As of April 2013 the Tele2 Russia brand is leased under a licensing arrangement from Tele2 Group.

In December 2013 the company merged with telecommunications giant Rostelecom to secure additional 3G and 4G licences, expanding its coverage to a further 27 regions. Rostelecom and Tele2 Russia merged their mobile assets to form a new national mobile operator T2 RTK Holding. To extend services into additional Russian regions, the company has since acquired over 30 additional companies. Rostelecom has since sought to expand its ownership of the company from 45% to 100%.

2G GSM services are provided over the 900 and 1800 MHz bands. Following the merger with Rostelecom, Tele2 integrated 3G UMTS (HSPA+) services into its network via its Baikalwestcom CJS subsidiary. 3G services were fully launched in November 2014 across the remainder of its network, including DC-HSPA+ data services.

Tele2 Russia 4G

Tele2 Russia commercially launched B3 (1800 MHz) LTE in December 2014 in Tula and settlements of the Leninsky district, Shchekin, Novomoskovsk, knots, Don, North Zadonsk, Sokolniki and Aleksinon. Rollouts in most major cities began throughout 2015. Further LTE networks have been launched on B7 (2600 MHz) and B20 (800 MHz), with smaller LTE TDD deployments over B40 (2300 MHz) primarily in Krasnodar and Sochi districts.

The company commercially launched B31 (450 MHz) LTE under the SkyLink banner in May 2016, initially in regional areas and gradually expanding to cover St. Petersburg and Moscow within the same year.

Tele2 has launched a number of LTE-Advanced services, including demonstrating inter-site 2C carrier aggregation between two neighbouring cell towers using both B7 and B20 frequency bands.

It should be noted that while T2 RTK holds paired 7.5 MHz spectrum in 700 MHz band, no LTE deployments have been recorded.

Tele2 Russia 5G

The company has demonstrated 5G technologies in conjunction with its development partner Nokia, including the use of 4.5 GHz spectrum and 8x8 MIMO. In February 2019 the company announced it had partnered with Ericsson for a 5G-ready network modernisation program which would see upgrades to 50,000 towers over a five year period. Much of the company's 5G testing has been conducted by its major shareholder Rostelecom.

Tele2 launched its first 5G pilot zone in August 2019 in central Moscow. The 28 GHz NSA mmWave network, understood to be using the European n258 (26 GHz) band, has boasted peak data speeds up to 2.1 Gbps and minimum latency of 9 ms. As a NSA deployment the network is anchored to the B7 (2600 MHz) LTE band. The 5G zone was constructed in partnership with Ericsson.

Tele2 Russia IoT

In November 2018 Tele2 conducted NB-IoT testing in partnership with Ericsson. A pilot program was launched in late 2018 and expanded in April 2019 to cover utilities providers in Moscow.