MOSCOW—A major Russian investment company, Sistema-Telecom Financial Corporation, said it will sell the Personal Communications (SONET) CDMA carrier as the project has no future in the country.
“We shall sell SONET. But I would not say to whom,” said Sistema-Telecom President Alexander Goncharuk. “We consider the project unpromising. Therefore, SONET directors decided to stop developing network infrastructure.”
In the meantime, SONET head Mikhail Susov quit the post and was transferred to head Komstar, a landline communications company.
Goncharuk said the sale is likely to be completed “in a couple of months,” and the cost will equal SONET network construction expenses.
Anton Pogrebinsky from J’Son and Partners telecom consultancy estimated the cost at US$35 million to US$40 million. He added Sistema-Telecom has near-total control of SONET through its MTU-Inform subsidiary.
SONET has 40,000 clients, although the target figure for the end of the year was 50,000 to 70,000. “We selected an option according to which the limited development should have ended in a sale. We abide by this scenario,” Goncharuk said.
But Pogrebinsky failed to figure out who might buy SONET as the CDMA technology based on the IS-95 standard is to quit Russia by 2010 and must abandon the 470 MHz to 872 MHz band.
Still Goncharuk insisted that “in general, the CDMA technology is promising and is being developed by MCC and Delta-Telecom.”
However, Moscow Cellular Communications (MCC) and Delta Telecom, two NMT 450 MHz carriers, are developing a different CDMA technology than SONET operates. The technology is based on the International Mobile Telecommunications Multi-Carrier (IMT-MC) technology and operates in the 400 MHz band.
At the same time, mobile market experts believe Sistema-Telecom may sell SONET jointly with its 23.5-percent stake in MCC. “Such an option seems logical to me,” an anonymous Sistema-Telecom top manager told the Vedomosti newspaper.
Experts believe the MCT Company, which owns a 22-percent stake in MCC, may buy Sistema’s interest, as well as a 23.5-percent stake owned by Rostelecom. The latter already included the sale in its 2002 plans.
