Irteya, owned by MTS, will release equipment for 5G at Tomsk Micran

As Kommersant learned, Irteya, owned by MTS, will launch the production of 5G and 4G base stations (BS) at the facilities of Tomsk Micran. In 2024, the parties plan to issue 1 thousand BS, and in the future – “5-10 thousand annually.” The operator expects to begin testing equipment on communication networks in Moscow and the Moscow region in the first half of 2024. The demand for base stations, experts believe, will depend on market regulation and criteria for recognizing equipment as domestic: so far the share of foreign components in Irteya technology exceeds 90%.

The developer of telecommunications equipment Irtea (100% owned by MTS) will start producing communication base stations at the facilities of the Tomsk Mikran plant, the company’s general director Dmitry Lakontsev told Kommersant. According to him, production will begin in 2024, then 1 thousand base stations for 4G and 5G standards will be produced. It is planned to test the equipment on networks “mainly in Moscow and the Moscow region” in the first half of the year. By 2025, Irtea expects to establish an annual production of “5-10 thousand base communication stations.” Micran did not respond to the request.

The company refused to specify the price of one BS. According to Kommersant, we can talk about 1.5–2 million rubles. With direct deliveries from Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, base station equipment, a system module, a radio module and antennas, in the 2G+4G configuration, cost around 2 million rubles, says Alexey Slukin, author of the Telegram channel “Telekommunalka”. In his opinion, taking into account inflation and exchange rate fluctuations over the past two years, the price is 1.5–2.5 million rubles. “looks adequate.”

Irteya Communications Director Alexander Sivolobov adds that the company plans to increase the level of equipment localization: “The solution already uses the domestic electronic component base, and its share will only increase.” However, Kommersant’s sources familiar with the Irtei BS prototypes claim that now the share of foreign components in them exceeds 90%.

In September, Irtea products came in into the government “road map” “Modern and future mobile communication networks”. Judging by the document, the company plans to develop and produce base stations based on the OpenRAN open architecture and invest about 5.6 billion rubles in the project. Later, Kommersant found out that in order to develop the project, Irtea bought out the Skoltech team, which specializes in OpenRAN developments. According to Kommersant, Irtey and MTS signed a forward contract for the supply of 20 thousand base stations until 2030 (see Kommersant on November 20).

According to SPARK-Interfax, NPF Mikran JSC was established on April 30, 2008, the company produces telecom equipment, measuring equipment, microwave components, etc. 25% is owned by Industrial Investors LLC, another 75% are citizens of Russia. The financial indicators of the joint-stock company are hidden in SPARK-Interfax. According to the company’s investment memorandum dated June 2023, at the end of last year the company’s revenue amounted to 4.4 billion rubles. (growth by 10.3%). Kommersant’s interlocutor, close to the company’s management, says that in 2022 the company increased sales due to government orders; he expects this trend to continue at the end of 2023.

MegaFon says that the company is testing various types of network equipment and components, including domestic ones: “The stock of equipment and components is important for providing quality service to subscribers, so we are working to expand the network of new suppliers.” VimpelCom “welcomes competition in the domestic telecom equipment market.” A similar position is taken by Tele2, where they “consider Russian manufacturers and work with vendors under forward contracts.”

Kommersant’s interlocutor among the operators confirmed that the prototype of the Irtei base station is available for study and some operators are ready to take samples for testing. “It’s still difficult to talk about the cost, since the functionality of the commercial release is not fully understood,” he adds. According to Kommersant’s source, Irteya’s prospects in the market will depend on the future interpretation of the term “domestic equipment,” since Russian BS are often still assembled from foreign components. Formally, according to the current requirements of the authorities, by 2028 all new stations must be only domestic.

Timofey Kornev, Nikita Korolev