The companies have also prolonged their current agreement on network development for three additional years. The whole volume of sales of products and services from Ericsson will total up to EUR 1.82 billion since 2008 to 2019 under the new agreement. GSM and 3G network will be upgraded, and the LTE network will be developed in the Volga, North-Western, Siberian, the Urals and Southern federal districts.
MTS and Ericsson have also tested the LTE-U (LTE-Unlicensed) technology in Moscow. MTS claims that it is the first to test the technology in Russia. During the tests, 10 MHz in the 1,800 MHz band and 20 MHz band in the 5 GHz band were aggregated to achieve up to 200 Mbps speeds. The Ericsson RBS6402 multi-standard multi-band picocell was used. The tests were carried out under the framework of the cooperation agreement signed by MTS and Ericssson in December 2015. The aggregation of bands will enable improved indoor coverage and capacity of the network, MTS said.
