Cellular communication needs to hold out for two years of the “transition period”

Following the approval by the EU on October 6, 2022 of the eighth package of sanctions against Russia, European IT companies can no longer provide architectural and engineering services for their Russian clients, as well as advise them. In practice, this means that the ban applies not only to the sale of new equipment, but also to technical support for already purchased products – installation of equipment, network configuration and software (SW) implementation, as well as their repair and maintenance.

Two sources of Vedomosti, close to the big four operators, have already announced difficulties in interacting with the Finnish Nokia and the Swedish Ericsson. “There will be no software updates. There will be no repair. There will be no deliveries of spare parts,” one of them sounds the alarm. According to the estimates of the second interlocutor, 50-60% of the Russian cellular infrastructure is a Nokia-Ericsson link (approximately 25-30% for each). The dependence on foreign vendors is colossal: both companies produce a full cycle of communication equipment and software for mobile networks. Nokia and Ericsson, after the start of a special military operation (SVO), suspended the supply of telecom equipment to Russia, and later announced that they would stop all operations with customers in the country from 2023.