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Late last, year Russia’s leading mobile phone operators, Rostelecom, Megafon, Vimpelcom and MTS, announced plans to create a joint venture to overcome the challenges of creating 5G networks, such as clearing up the frequency band required for their operation. 5G plans have been heavily discussed in Russia for the last few years, but until recently, it wasn’t clear if new-generation networks would be developed by a consortium of existing operators or a designated operator would be formed to focus solely on 5G. The announcement of the consortium of operators stipulates that the member companies will share an allocated frequency range, but won’t function as a designated 5G operator, with existing operators developing their own fifth-generation networks. The venture’s main goal is working out the most suitable procedure for allocating and vacating frequencies that could be used for the rolling out of 5G networks, Frederic Vanoosthuyze, chief technology officer at MegaFon, told Computer Weekly. “Long Term Evolution (LTE) commercial ...