Russian mobile operator Vimpelcom, working under the Beeline brand, and the mobile operator Tele2 Russia have agreed to launch a shared network in 27 regions across the country, reports Vedomosti. The operators have signed a letter of intent on the issue and plan to share both passive and active infrastructure, over GSM, 3G and LTE network.
The cooperation includes the city and region of St Petersburg, as well as the Irkutsk, Saratov, Krasnodar and Tver regions, but not Moscow. The operators also don't plan to share the 450 MHz spectrum owned by Tele2 Russia. The aim is to reduce their operating and capital expenditure with the network sharing.
In December 2014, Beeline and the mobile operator MTS agreed on the joint deployment of the LTE network in 36 regions. In January of this year, Beeline and the mobile operator Megafon announced that they plan to build over 1,300 LTE base stations in 10 regions.
