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Belarus: Mobile Telecoms Market Overview
Mobile TeleSystems Joint Limited Liability Company in Belarus was registered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 4 April 2002 by the Belarusian company Beltelecom and Russian Company Mobile TeleSystems.
MTS was awarded a GSM license in April 2002 and the network was up-and-running for commercial operation in June the same year.
Velcom (under the Velcom and Privet trademarks) was the first cellular communications operator and official representative of the satellite communications company Globalstar in the Republic of Belarus.
The company launched commercial activity on 16 April 1999, with just 10 base stations in the capital, Minsk. By the end of 2002 the company covered 70 towns and settlements and more than 87 percent of the urban population had access to Velcom's network.
In 2005 the company upgraded its WAP-service to a new WAP-gateway (2.0 version). In December 2005, WAP throughput was improved and high-speed data transfer technology EDGE was introduced in Belarus for the first time.
Belarusian Telecommunications Network (or BeST) was founded on the 5th of November 2004 and went on to receive a licence to provide a GSM 900/1800 network on the 24 March 2005.
Although according to the license terms BeST was obliged to start commercial operations by the 28 September 2005, the new GSM provider only got its official Giprosviaz certificate for its microwave-link equipment on the 7 September 2005. Its GSM network went live during December 2005 and it launched commercial services in January 2006.
On 30 July 2008 Turkish mobile operator Turkcell has agreed to acquire an 80 percent stake in BeST from the Belarus government for USD 500 million.
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The Worldwide Directory of Mobile Network Operators 2008
Europe, CIS and Russia:
142 Pages - 210 Operators - 770 Named Contacts - 63 Countries
Click here for further details.
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