Yanekh, Karvansara and Astghadzor, three rural villages in Armenia’s Gegarkunik region were connected to the mains electricity supply when mobile operator, VivaCell-MTS requiring a power supply for its base stations in the region.
VivaCell ran high voltage power cables to its Base Transceiver Stations (BTS), with extra power supplies going to an electricity sub-station in each of the villages. The first Base Station located near Yanekh supplies electricity to the villages Yanekh and Karvansara and the other one located near Selim Mountain Pass supplies the village of Astghadzor.
According to Blycroft’s Mobile Market Overview, VivaCell is Armenia’s largest mobile operator with 1.49 milllion subscribers as of 2Q 2008. It launched in July 2005, then owned by K Telecom. On the 17th of September 2007 80 percent of the company was sold to MTS, the largest operator in Russia and in the CIS.
Since launching in July 2005 VivaCell have gone from no subscribers to 70 percent of the market, due primarily to ArmenTel having exceptionally high pricing, at times around 3 times higher than neighbouring countries Georgia and Azerbaijan. It currently has a licence to launch 3G services and will do so in early 2009.