OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2010. Rostelecom and Skartel (Yota) will not be allowed to use the frequencies that they recently tendered for WiMAX for another technology, such as LTE, according to Alexandr Katulevsky, the deputy head of Russia's regulator for the segment, Roskomnadzor. Both operators will need additional approval from the regulator in order to launch LTE.

View: This is good news for the big three operators, who are developing 3G networks in Russia, and negative news for Rostelecom. Even though Rostelecom is eventually likely to obtain permission for LTE, every delay is negative as its competition is already rapidly acquiring subscribers for mobile data. 

Valuation: Rostelecom trades on a 2010 EV/EBITDA of 4.0x, while MTS and Vimpelcom trade at 4.6x and 4.2x, respectively.