Geneva, October, 7, 2009 - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading provider of telecom systems and mobile phones, announced today that it will provide additional 1,400 Mobile WiMAX macro base stations and high capacity (28 Gbps) ASN Gateway to Yota, the Russia-based Mobile WiMAX service provider, by early 2010.
With this latest contract, Samsung is to deploy more than 8,000 Mobile WiMAX base stations for commercial Mobile WiMAX services in Russia since Yota selected Samsung as its sole Mobile WiMAX equipment vendor.
Yota said it is expanding its Mobile WiMAX network earlier than initially planned due to a dramatic increase in subscribers and heavy data traffic. The company currently has around 2,000 new subscribers per day and its average subscriber traffic in July was equaled to 10.3 Gigabytes, which is almost 20% higher than the average ADSL/cable broadband usage in Moscow and St. Petersburg, or about 100 times more than the average GPRS/EDGE/3G usage in Russia.
Moreover, Yota expects that the increase in subscribers will accelerate with its launch of VoIP service and a broad range of Mobile WiMAX devices. Yota is planning to launch the world’s first VoIP service with its new Dual Mode handset supporting Mobile WiMAX and GSM dual band in November. Yota is also preparing more than 100 types of Mobile WiMAX devices including USB dongles, phones, notebooks, netbooks, express cards, and CPEs by the end of this year.
“We are committed to expand the Mobile WiMAX network in 180 cities in Russia by 2012,” said Mr. Dennis Sverdlov, CEO of Yota. “Thanks to Samsung’s strong support, we have been able to deploy the Mobile WiMAX network across the broadest regions in the fastest period.”
“Mobile WIMAX is the one and only mobile broadband technology for immediate deployment in the world and it is the most sophisticated telecommunication service since we expect global roaming service in the near future,” said Woonsub Kim, Executive Vice President and Head of the Telecommunication Systems Division, Samsung Electronics. “As a leading provider, Samsung is committed to providing the most innovative Mobile WiMAX solutions available and we are confident we will achieve further Mobile WiMAX success stories around the world.”
Samsung and Yota are developing other Mobile WiMAX projects in Latin America, including Nicaragua and Peru, and the CIS region, including Belorussia. In cooperation with Samsung, Yota has secured the first 2.5GHz frequency license in Nicaragua and plans to launch a commercial Mobile WiMAX service by the end of this year.