Beeline Russia has announced in a press release that its 4G mobile population coverage reached 84% at the end of the third quarter of 2019, after it accelerated its LTE/LTE-A network expansion. Earlier, in its parent group VEON’s 3Q19 results presentation Beeline said that its number of 4G base stations increased by 43% quarter-on-quarter, and its latest release added that over the 18 months to end-September the total increased by 120%. According to state agency Roskomnadzor in Q3 Beeline achieved the fastest LTE base station growth rate in the Russian market (putting the percentage slightly higher at 44%).
Furthermore, Beeline reported on its comprehensive modernisation programme, disclosing that by the end of Q3 2019 it had replaced 91% of its base stations across Russia; by that date the modernisation was completed in 25 Beeline network regions/branches with work still ongoing at 52 branches. Beeline’s network development programme also includes a twofold increase in the frequency band for LTE; at the end of September 2019 this spectrum project was 95% completed, with frequency refarming carried out in ten company branches/regions in the year-to-date, following work at 45 branches in 2018. As a result, the average speed of mobile Internet has increased by 30% in nine months. One of the key projects in 2019 was the modernisation of the network in Moscow city and the Moscow region; by end-Q3 Beeline modernised more than 95% of base stations in the capital/region, aiming for 100% by the year-end.