Azerbaijan, Baku, April 29 /Trend H.Valiyev/
The lack of the necessary frequency resources hampers the deployment of 3G standard in the Azercell Telekom network, Company President Ali Agan said on Friday.
Based on the existing contracts, the current frequency resource used by the company is valid until 2016, after which it will be transferred to the control of the State Radio Frequencies Administration of the Communications and IT Ministry, Agan said.
The company's network is fully ready for the transition to 3G. The company is also ready to launch a commercial operation of 4G.
Agan said Azerbaijan could become one of the first countries in the world with extensive LTE infrastructure.
Now the ministry considers the issue of provision a license to provide services in the 3G standard to Azercell. It is expected that it will be available soon.
Operators require one or two 5 MHz frequency bandwidth each to deploy 3G in Azerbaijan.
Each operator should have three 5 MHz frequency bandwidth in the ideal situation to cover the entire county.
The operator may begin 3G network construction with only one 5MHz lane. This is enough to provide services in UMTS standard for the bulk of the Baku population, who interested in 3G.