Kazakhstan’s Minister of Digital Development, Bagdat Musin, has stated that more than 1,000 5G base stations will be installed in the country by the end of this year in the largest three cities of Almaty, Astana and Shymkent by sister mobile operators Kcell and Tele2-Altel, which jointly won the 5G licence auction in December 2022. Quoted by the Sputnik news service, Musin announced at a briefing following a government meeting: ‘For now, the task is to cover regional centres and cities of Republican significance. Until the end of this year, there was a plan to install 600-700 base stations, but the operators who won the 5G auction changed these plans, and more than one thousand base stations will be installed in the cities of Astana, Almaty and Shymkent.’ Furthermore, the minister said that Kcell and Tele2-Altel are aiming to cover all regional centres with 5G by end-2026, a year earlier than a previously set target.
Earlier, the parent of Kcell and Tele2-Altel, state-backed Kazakhtelecom, reported that 5G network access was live in selected zones of seven cities, namely Almaty, Shymkent, Astana, Turkestan, Semey, Kostanay and Karaganda, although the group only indicated that roughly 500 5G base stations were expected to be switched on by end-2023.