August 6. FINMARKET.RU – Mobile operators in the Russian Federation, as part of the decision to extend their LTE licenses, have undertaken to cover all settlements with more than 1,000 people with high-speed mobile Internet access networks in 2024, said Maksut Shadayev, head of the RF Ministry of Digital Industry. According to him, the decision to extend the licenses was made by the State Commission for Radio Frequencies on August 2.
“We were able to agree that in 2024, operators will complete the creation of high-speed mobile Internet infrastructure in all settlements with a population of more than a thousand people at their own expense. They will invest their own funds as part of social responsibility,” Shadayev said yesterday at a meeting of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin with members of the government.
In addition, according to the minister, the operators agreed to cover more than 80% of federal highways with their networks at their own expense by 2024.
Shadayev recalled that as part of the project to eliminate the digital divide in 2021, 1.2 thousand settlements with a population of 100-500 people will be provided with Internet access. In September, a vote will be launched on the portal of public services in order to form a program for the priority connection of such settlements for the next year. “First of all, we will provide mobile Internet where there is a massive demand from residents,” the minister explained.
In addition, to stimulate the construction of networks in settlements of 500-1000 people, the Ministry of Digital Science proposes to reduce the payment for using the radio frequency spectrum for operators building networks in such settlements by the amount of their investments.
“If we implement this set of measures, then by 2024 we will be able to increase the number of users of high-speed mobile Internet from 87 million now to more than 100 million. In principle, we have the potential for this,” the head of the Ministry of Finance said.
