Deep connection with the fatherland – Newspaper Kommersant No. 209 (7410) dated 11/11/2022

Kommersant learned the details of the New Telecom Solutions LLC (NTR) project to develop communication base stations for small towns. NTR intends to invest about 1.7 billion rubles. and receive the first minimum viable prototype in March 2023. In the future, the NTR plans to produce 10-15 thousand base stations annually. The installation of domestic stations in remote and sparsely populated areas will free up scarce foreign equipment for the development of networks in large cities, experts believe.

LLC New Telecom Solutions (NTR) plans to invest about 1.7 billion rubles. in the development of GSM / LTE base stations, follows from the project passport sent to the Ministry of Digital Development (Kommersant has a copy). The document notes that the goal of the project is “to create a domestic solution for the GSM / LTE radio subsystem of the operator level, which allows commercial service for settlements with up to 250 thousand people.”

According to the project passport, NTR expects to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product, minimum viable product) by March 15 next year. From 2026, NTR hopes to produce 10,000 LTE base stations and 5,000 GSM+LTE base stations annually. “The solution is focused on carrier-class stations, productivity growth and the addition of software functionality will proceed gradually,” a representative of NTR specified to Kommersant.

Rostelecom should become the anchor customer, the document says. On the company’s plans to conclude several forward contracts for 20-25 billion rubles. on the purchase of Russian telecommunications equipment, RBC reported on October 26, citing Alexei Sapunov, senior vice president for technical infrastructure at Rostelecom. Also among the possible customers in the project are MegaFon, MTS, Beeline and Tele2. And by 2030, export sales are planned “in the amount of up to 5 billion rubles. to the countries of South Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Central Asia and Latin America, thanks to the request to bridge the digital divide in developing countries,” the document says.

According to SPARK-Interfax, LLC NTR was established in 2014 in Moscow. Revenue at the end of 2021 amounted to 165 million rubles. with a loss of 73 million rubles. In 2014, TAdviser wrote that NTR was created by the management of I-Teco JSC for the development and production of telecommunications and multimedia equipment. From October 6, 2022, NTR is not formally connected with I-Teco: 33.9% of the company belong to NTR-Invest (100% owned by NTR), 26.01% from Alexei Bosik, 25% from Alexander Yuryev and 15 % from Mikhail Golubev. The NTR website says that the company is part of the I-Teco group of companies. But in the Kommersant Group they assured that “NTR withdrew from the group.”

ANO Telecommunication Technologies (ANO TT, which includes Rostelecom, Element Group and Rostec) told Kommersant that the development of stations for small settlements “will free up scarce equipment from foreign suppliers and use it for development communication networks in large cities.

Vimpelcom refused to comment on the NTR project, but assured that “the maximum support for domestic developers in terms of testing, pilots and implementation of such solutions.” Kommersant’s interlocutor in one of the operators considers the project promising and emphasizes that such equipment “can potentially be used to develop 2G / LTE networks in areas with low and medium network load.” Rostelecom, Tele2 and MTS refrained from commenting, Mintsifra and MegaFon did not respond to requests.

At the same time, a Kommersant source in one of the major manufacturers is skeptical about the real export potential of such equipment: “By 2030, due to the global transition to 5G and 6G, the current equipment of the world’s largest vendors will enter the secondary market, and it will be cheaper than new equipment in repeatedly”. The interlocutor adds that under such conditions, Russian base stations will be in demand in export markets only if they turn out to be cheaper than foreign ones and reliable, taking into account the experience of use in the Russian Federation.

Nikita Korolev