Belarus: Mobile Telecoms Market Overview

MTS

Mobile TeleSystems Joint Limited Liability Company in Belarus was registered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 4th April 2002 by the Belarusian company Beltelecom and Russian Company Mobile TeleSystems.

The company was awarded a GSM licence in April 2002 and the network was live and ready for commercial operation by June of the same year.

Velcom

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 the 16th 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.

BeST

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 24th of March 2005.

Although according to the license terms BeST was obliged to start commercial operations by the 28th of September 2005, the new GSM provider only got its official Giprosviaz certificate for its microwave-link equipment on the 7th of September 2005. Its GSM network went live during December 2005 and it launched commercial services in January 2006.

On the 30th of July 2008 Turkish mobile operator Turkcell has agreed to acquire an 80 percent stake in BeST from the Belarus government for USD 500 million.