Cellular communications (Belarusian market)

The development of 5G networks in Belarus

Main article: Development of 5G networks in Belarus

2024: Signing final roaming cancellation documents with Russia

On November 5, 2024, the Council of Ministers of states the Union approved a resolution "On the creation of comfortable tariffs for the use of communication and data transfer services on the territory of the Union State," providing for the abolition roaming of March 1, 2025.

According to Izvestia, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, at a meeting with Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko, stressed the need to provide telephone communications and Internet traffic at home rates for citizens of both countries.

𝓲

Freepik

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, represented by the director of the second department of the countries of SNGAlexei Polishchuk, said that mobile subscribers will have access to communication services at comfortable tariffs on the territory of the Union State from January 1, 2025.

The project is being implemented in stages. At first, the fee for incoming roaming calls on the territory of the Union State was canceled, which greatly simplified communication for citizens often traveling between the two countries.

The approval of the resolution is the result of the fulfillment of the instructions of the presidents of Russia and Belarus - Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. The President of Russia in May 2024 announced the imminent cancellation of roaming, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko outlined the deadlines for the completion of the project by the end of 2024.

The new rules will provide comfortable tariffs for telephone conversations and Internet access for subscribers of Russian and Belarusian operators. This is especially important given the active movement of citizens between countries and the need to maintain constant communication.

The signed resolution is part of the integration program within the framework of the Union State, aimed at creating a single information and communication space. The document regulates the procedure for interaction between telecom operators of the two countries and establishes the principles of charging services for subscribers. ^[1] the ^[2]

2022: Free incoming calls in Russia and Belarus

From April 1, 2022, Russia and Belarus canceled the fee for incoming calls. The decision was made on March 23, 2022, at a meeting of the High-Level Group of the Council of Ministers of the Union State. This is an important result of the road map for the implementation of the resolution of the Supreme State Council, signed on December 20, 2019. This was reported by Ministry of Digital Development on March 31, 2022. Read more here.

2017

LTE cellular communications reach 60% of the population

60% of users in all regional centers, large regional centers and Minsk are provided with LTE cellular communications in Belarus, according to the official website of the Ministry of Communications and Informatization in May 2017.

In the telecommunications industry of the republic, a software and hardware expansion of the IMS platform was carried out, as a result of which more than 148 thousand subscribers were connected, and their total number was 1.9 million. The total number of users of stationary broadband Internet access has grown by 20 thousand, they now number 3 million in the republic. The number of subscribers connected using GPON technology increased by 140 thousand, their total number is 1.2 million.

Data transfer services, thanks to the network modernization, are provided at speeds up to 100 Mb/s. The bandwidth of the international Internet access channel increased by 10 Gb/s and amounted to 1,110 Gb/s. The number of IPTV users increased by 35 thousand and amounts to 1.5 million. As of April 1, there were 11.4 million mobile telecommunications subscribers in the republic.

2016

The number of broadband fixed Internet access subscribers in the republic is about 3.06 million, IPTV subscribers are 1.51 million, and 1.81 million are connected to the IMS platform. 1.09 million households are connected using GPON technology. The width of the external channel for Internet access was 1100 Gbps. The average consumption of Internet traffic in the fourth generation standard is 6.6 GB per subscriber.

Quality of cellular communication in Belarus

In Belarus, a rating of mobile operators appeared in early 2017, compiled on the basis of the quality of the services they provide. In terms of key parameters, among the clear leaders was the life:) brand, which is considered lagging behind in terms of the size of the subscriber base.

A two-time gap was identified between the three leading Belarusian cellular operators in three key parameters of communication quality. Serious discrepancies were recorded in terms of the availability of the telephone network, the time of establishment of communication and the proportion of voice calls that ended in a break. It is noteworthy that the leading operators - MTS and velcom - demonstrated indicators that turned out to be significantly worse than that of the life:) operator, which is part of the Turkcell group of companies. The study was conducted by DMTel.

4G traffic in Belarus increased by 400% over the year

The average traffic consumption in the LTE network in Belarus for the year increased from 1.6 GB to 6.6 GB. The average daily data was 28 TB, and the penetration of devices with 4G support reached 15% in the republic.

These data were announced by the mobile operator MTS Belorus and beCloud as part of an event to expand the coverage area of ​ ​ the 4G network in Belarus. Starting from December 23, the fourth generation network will work in all regional centers of the republic and most district cities.

To cover 75% of the urban population, infrastructure operator beCloud needed to install more than 500 base stations.

2009: Number of mobile subscribers

The Ministry of Communications and Informatization of Belarus issued official data on the development of the mobile communications industry in the country in 2008. As of January 1, 2009, there were 8.1 million active subscribers in the country. Cellular communications now cover 93.5% of the country, which is home to 98.6% of the population. We are talking about subscribers who have made at least one call in the last two months.

The largest operator - MTS - declares that its subscriber base is 4.32 million people. The second largest operator, Velcom, has not yet provided data on the size of its subscriber base. The third Belarusian GSM operator BeST claims that on the last day of 2008 it had 231 thousand subscribers. The only CDMA operator announced 105.5 thousand users.