The meeting was attended by representatives of Communication Administrations of nine states: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), relevant regional organisations from the European and American regions, the GSM Association, the UAE regulator in the field of telecommunications and digital technologies, Intersputnik International Space Communications Organisation, Policy Impact Partners (PIP), Huawei, Inmarsat and other companies.
On the sidelines of the meeting there was also held a forum on the development of fifth-generation communication networks with the participation of representatives of Russian business and international expert community. Speakers discussed a number of relevant topics of concern for the industry in 2023: from the prospects for the development and implementation of 5G networks to the impact of the Russian orbital satellite constellation on the development of non-terrestrial fifth-generation mobile communication networks.
"In the current conditions of limiting the use of the spectrum allocated to operators, further expansion of LTE network capacity is only possible through the construction of new base stations, which is currently severely hampered by restrictions on the supply of imported equipment and the current lack of domestic equipment. Therefore, for the development of LTE networks it is necessary to harmonise the spectrum, remove restrictions on the use of allocated frequency bands, as well as allocate new frequency bands for the development of 5G, which will help to meet the growing needs of our subscribers," - Director of Radio Access Network Development Olga Ramina presented Beeline's view on optimising the use of radio frequency resource.
In his turn, Konstantin Zudin, Director of Regulatory Affairs of Beeline, spoke about the prospects for the introduction of 5G networks and the main factors that now complicate this work, namely: the allocation of the necessary frequency band, the lack of network equipment and problems with subscriber equipment, which seems to be available, but many manufacturers block the 5G radio interface.
Alexander Pastukh, Head of the Laboratory of the Research Centre for Advanced Wireless Technologies at NIIR FSBI (Radio Research and Development Institute, Federal State Budgetary Institution), looked into the future and shared his opinion on the next generation technology - 6G, calling it an important driver of progress in society. "Despite the fact that 6G is still in the future, research on its development is being actively conducted worldwide with billions of dollars of investments. In addition, regional communication organisations are already actively offering new capacity and frequency bands for 6G. This emphasises the importance of long-term plans and society's readiness for advanced technological change," he said.
The most important function of non-terrestrial mobile communication networks is to provide emergency calls and messages, in areas where there is no terrestrial mobile network signal - Vladimir Valkovich, Director of Strategy and Long-Term Network Development Planning at Beeline company, dedicated his speech to these future technologies. "Such communication opens up opportunities for the implementation of a large number of business scenarios: this includes providing communication (including temporary) in hard-to-reach places, in small settlements and on motorways, river and sea routes, and organising transport channels for connecting remote base stations, and backing up the terrestrial mobile network," he concluded.
The Regional Commonwealth in the Field of Communications was established on December 17, 1991 by the Communication Administrations of 11 countries - former republics of the Soviet Union - to preserve the unity of the telecommunication structure and to implement cooperation of newly independent states in the field of electric and postal communications on a voluntary basis, on the principles of mutual respect and sovereignty. Today, the RCC is an international organisation with the functions of the CIS interstate coordinating body in the field of electric and postal communications, which also has observer status in the ITU and the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The RCC has 21 members - 13 full members and eight observers.
