According to information from the current version of the passport of the federal project "Information Infrastructure" of the national program "Digital Economy", published by CNews, the Russian authorities have several times reduced the cost of converting the radio frequency spectrum in the interests of 5G development. Initially, it was planned to allocate 43 billion rubles for this direction until 2024. But as a result, the authorities decided to cut spending on this area to 7.85 billion rubles. These funds will be allocated from the budget. Another 260 million rubles will be attracted from extrabudgetary sources.
As CNews notes, the launch of 5G requires frequencies in three groups of bands - below 1 GHz for operation in rural areas, from 1 to 6 GHz for large cities and 24.25-29.5 GHz for spot coverage of crowded subscribers. The most important range (from 1 to 6 GHz) intersects with the ranges on which, for example, the Ministry of Defense and the FSO, as well as satellite communications networks (3.4-3.8 GHz), are already operating. Telecom operators insist on providing them with frequencies in this range, but instead they are offered 4.4-4.99 GHz, in which there may be a shortage of subscriber devices. In addition, there may be problems with this range in border areas, since it is used in other countries for air navigation aids.
In early December last year, the US aviation regulator warned that some aircraft's altimeters could go haywire due to 5G. The 5G mid-range interferes with radio altimeters used to determine the height of an aircraft during landing. On January 21 this year, the Federal Air Transport Agency asked the airlines to prepare for 5G and warned of the possible appearance of interference. At the same time, the agency noted that at the moment, no unequivocal answer about the possible impact of 5G networks on the operation of radio altimeters has been received either from aircraft manufacturers, or from EASA and the FAA, or from the aviation authorities of other countries.
The millimeter range, according to the publication, is the only frequency range where 5G networks can be commercially operated in Russia, but only for spot coverage (stadiums, airports, etc.). Mobile Telesystems (MTS) has already received a corresponding license from the state. At the same time, in some regions it is also occupied by fixed wireless access, radio relay lines and earth stations of the Earth exploration satellite service.
The release of the 5G spectrum, the work to free up frequencies in this range, will require approximately 510 million rubles - 1.78 billion rubles. CNews notes that there has not yet been a full-fledged conversion of radio frequencies in Russia as such. Only the Federal Air Transport Agency withdrew its electronic equipment from the 700-900 MHz range, while military communications remained in this range.
In the second half of December 2022, the first 5G test site in Russia was opened at the Botkin Hospital in Moscow. As Vyacheslav Shulenin, General Director of the Moscow Center for Innovative Technologies in Health Care of the Social Development Complex, pointed out, this is a unique opportunity for startups and doctors to test new technologies in real clinical conditions and refine their product together with the city's leading medical specialists.
In addition, in mid-January this year, Rostelecom applied for 5G testing in the Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan metros. For this, the 3.3-3.4 and 3.8-4.1 GHz bands were requested, which are already occupied by satellite communications. Freshtel (a subsidiary of Rostelecom) already submitted a similar application last year, but it did not reach consideration.
bbabo.Net