Yota announces LTE-Advanced 300Mbps deployment in Moscow

Russian Long Term Evolution (LTE) operator Scartel (Yota) has announced that it has introduced a network based on the LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) standard in Moscow, which is capable of providing downlink transmission speeds of up to 300Mbps to end-users. However, the company notes that consumer devices capable of supporting the technology are not anticipated until 1H13. To date Yota says that it has deployed eleven LTE-A-equipped base stations across the capital. Although it has not been confirmed which vendor supplied Yota with the LTE-A equipment, TeleGeography notes that Chinese firm Huawei was described as the Russian operator’s ‘preferred technology partner’ in May 2012 when it deployed its end-to-end SingleRAN LTE/EPC solution, rolling out an LTE network in the 2.6GHz band.