We’ve already talked about the decision of Yota — Russia’s WiMAX operator — to switch to LTE and they seem to be moving toward that goal. The Russian telecoms regulator gave the permit to the company to reuse its existing radio spectrum for LTE based services.
Back when the WiMAX plans were announced, the idea was to rollout service in 15 cities. Now it [plan] is changed to include deploying LTE in five cities this year, with the remainder at an unspecified time in the future.
This year alone, Yota is expected to spend $100 million, having signed contracts for delivery of 1,000 base stations from an unspecified vendor.
Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where Yota’s WiMAX services are already available, will be moved to LTE at the end of 2011.
For the record, Yota has thus far signed up around 500,000 customers in Russia.
In addition to Yota, Rostelecom and MegaFon have also confirmed plans to launch LTE services in the country…
[Via: CellularNews]