Huawei to supply equipment to Uzbekistan’s national operator
By Aynur Jafarova
Chinese Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd will supply telecommunication equipment worth $117.6 million to Uzbekistan’s national operator Uzmobile, the branch of Uzbektelecomto create GSM network.
“The Chinese company has won the relevant tender, and the shareholders of Uzbektelecom approved the signing of a contract with Huawei Technologies at an extraordinary meeting last week,” a representative of Uzbektelecom told Trend Agency on November 10.
The contract will be financed by loans from China Development Bank worth $100 million and the Uzbek Alokabank worth $17.6 million.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov issued a decree on the
establishment of a national mobile operator, Uzmobile, on the basis
of the branch of Uzbektelecom in February, 2014.
The new operator will operate with the GSM standard using LTE
technologies (fourth generation network 4G).
The cost of the project is estimated at $500 million.
It was assumed that in 2014 the mobile network will cover Tashkent
with the installation of 1,020 base stations, 500 sets of microwave
transmission equipment, switching stations and billing systems for
two million numbers.
In 2015, the operator should distribute the network to all regional
centers with the installation of 1,994 base stations, 2,000 sets of
radio relay equipment for 8 million numbers, and by the end of 2017
- all other settlements with the installation of 3,986 base
stations and 4,000 sets of radio relay equipment.
The number of mobile service users in Uzbekistan in early 2014 stood at 19.6 million out of the 30.5 million population of Uzbekistan.
Cellular services in Uzbekistan are offered by four operators: Beeline (Unitel LLC) - GSM standard, Ucell (FE COSCOM LLC) - GSM standard, Perfectum Mobile (Rubicon Wireless Communication) - CDMA standard, and Uzmobile (branch of JSC Uzbektelecom) - CDMA-450 standard.
It is expected that Russian MTS will resume its operation within a joint venture in December this year.