MTS is the first Russian telecom operator to launch the next generation of mobile internet – LTE Advanced Pro (so called 4.5G), which enables speeds of up to 700 Mb/sec. This standard is already available in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Ufa and Yakutsk.
High internet speeds under the LTE Advanced Pro standard are achieved by combining frequency aggregation (LTE FDD 1800 MHz + LTE TDD 2600 MHz), multi-dimensional antenna systems (MIMO) 4x4 and modulation 256-QAM. The aggregation of these frequencies became possible after MTS won a spectrum auction in February 2016, to obtain throughout Russia frequency in the 2600 MHz range in the LTE TDD standard, which can be now used to MTS’s competitive advantage.
Smartphone producers plan to upgrade chips in their commercial devices so that their devices would support LTE Advanced Pro standard in 2017.
“MTS is committed to maintaining its leadership in telecoms technology in Russia and is laying the groundwork to evolve its networks to a 5G standard. Today, on the eve of the introduction of devices supporting 4.5G, we are launching the first commercial LTE Advanced Pro network in Russia. Indeed, we are the first telecom operator in the world to launch aggregated FDD and TDD network, which permits us to achieve mobile internet speeds of up to 700 Mb/sec. In this way we not only provide our customers with a significant increase in their internet speeds, but we also increase the efficiency of MTS’s use of the LTE TDD spectrum in the 2.6 GHz range.” – commented Andrey Ushatskiy, Vice President for Technology and IT and Chief Technology Officer of MTS.