OREANDA-NEWS. November 3, 2010. Mobile telephony operator Sky Link has received authorization from the State Radio Frequency Committee (SRFC) to operate 1920-1935 and 2110-2125 MHz bandwidths in its business activities involving the provision of cellular telephony within a two-range IMT-MC mobile network throughout its license territory in the Russian Federation.

“The 450 GHz frequency is optimal in Russian conditions, since it requires considerably fewer base stations to cover large territories.  But this major advantage turns into a liability in densely populated cities with heavy traffic.  Furthermore, the bandwidth which has been assigned to Sky Link and other CDMA operators in the 450 MHz, accounts for less than 5 MHz, whereas GSM operators each have 40 MHz.  There is no way to compete with them on an even footing and it will not be easy without having comparable resource facilities.  As a matter of fact, the regulatory approval gave us the ability to use the 2.1 GHz bandwidth”, says Gulnara Khasyanova, general director of Sky Link.

Sky Link’s license territory in the IMT-MC standard extends to 60 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

At present, Sky Link’s coverage area covers over 9,000 towns and cities (465 of which have a population of over 5,000 inhabitants) and 36 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, where the operator has over one million 3G subscribers.  The total volume of Sky Link’s Internet traffic in 2009 stood at over 2,500Tb, which is comparable with the aggregate traffic of all 3G operators of Big-3 operators.

*Based on research data from ComNews Research