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Telecom
November 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
Kyrgyzstan gives up on Alfa Telecom privatisation after nearly a decade
Bishkek is sticking with its state-owned telco (pictured is the capital's Ala-too Square, with the Erkindik Monument (Freedom Monument)).
The Kyrgyz government has opted against including state-owned mobile operator Alfa Telecom in its submitted draft privatisation programme for 2018-2020. It appears to have given up on the sell-off of a 100% stake in the telco after nearly a decade of efforts.
Alfa Telecom is the absolutely dominant player on the Kyrgyzstan’s telecommunications market, covering 98% of the country’s mobile communications with 3mn subscribers.
Alfa Telecom CJSC was established in 2009 by Alexey Eliseyev, an associate of Maksim Bakiyev, son of the then Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose regime was toppled in a revolution
Russia to change rules of 5G frequencies distribution
Russia will change the rules of granting 5G fre- quency licences for telecom operators, switching from federal or regional licences to more targeted coverage of local objects and projects, the Deputy Minister of Communication Oleg Ivanov told Vedomosti daily on October 24.
These projects in Moscow could be the interna- tional business centre Moscow City or Skolkovo high tech business area, Ivanov suggested.
in 2010. The company was nationalised in the wake of the upheaval but the government has been seeking to re-privatise the company ever since. After a series of failures in the past seven years, it appears the government has finally surrendered on the idea.
The move confirms earlier comments by Renat Tuleberdiev, chairman of the State Property Management Fund of Kyrgyzstan, suggesting that the authorities had finally decided that
the company would remain under the fund’s ownership.
In it latest attempt to sell off the mobile operator, last year, a Russian citizen, Yelena Nagornaya, who had no connection to the telecommunications sector, was the sole applicant for buying out the 100% government stake in the company.
Russian regions would come with a very high level of capital investment. The new procedure of auctioning off 5G frequencies might start in December 2018, possibly adding competitive pressure among Russia's biggest operators.
In the next five years the costs of 5G implementation in Russia for the operators could amount to RUB300bn ($5bn), the COO of MegaFon and
the head of Russia's newly established big data association Anna Serebryanikova estimated.
The minister argued that carpet 5G coverage of