Azercell, Azerbaijan’s largest mobile network operator (MNO) by subscriptions, has announced its LTE network now covers 85.65% of the population and 74.30% of territory following additional site deployments and upgrades in the first nine months of the year. The company claims its ongoing network improvement programme has notably increased average download speeds in Baku and the Abhseron peninsula to 51Mbps, compared with 19Mbps in 2018 and 41Mbps in 2020. In addition, the operator plans to increase data capacity and transfer rates in the area by 30% ‘in the near future’.
Since the start of the year the operator has deployed 76 new LTE base transceiver stations (BTS), added 4G technology to 50 existing sites, upgraded a further 246 and increased data capacity at 150 sites. Azercell also highlighted that the volume of data traffic transmitted over its LTE network – capable of supporting down/upload speeds of 240Mbps/95Mbps – has increased by 170% over the past year, with about 71% its total data traffic now carried via LTE. According to its latest figures, the company’s combined voice and mobile internet services now cover 98.73% of the population and 94.25% of territory via a total of 2,846 BTS, including 65 sites in areas regained by Azeri forces during the military conflict in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2020.