ST. PETERSBURG, Russia-The St.Petersburg-based RadioTel carrier concluded an agreement with the Russian Transport Ministry regarding the construction of the first Trans European Trunked Radio (TETRA) network along the Moscow-St. Petersburg-Vyborg-Finnish border highway.
TETRA was designed by the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI), which was also the author of the GSM technology.
The first TETRA project is to be fully financed from the Russian budget. RadioTel, which makes part of the Telecominvest holding, will act as a general contractor, while the network will belong to the Transport Ministry.
“We have already begun to engineer the network. At the first stage we shall determine the cost of the project, while the second stage will be devoted to the choice of a supplier,” said RadioTel Director General Sergei Muranevich, adding that the choice is to be made by April 2001 and the construction will take two years. Motorola, Nokia, Marconi Communications and Simoco are said to compete.
Oleg Povarov, the commercial director of the Moscow-based Center-Telco trunk carrier, estimated that the network between Moscow and St. Petersburg would cost at least $100 million.
RadioTel has a license for 410-430 MHz frequencies in St. Petersburg and the surrounding region. However, it may face problems on the Moscow section of the highway as the corresponding frequencies there are occupied by the military, which wants to create its own TETRA network.
Major General Yuri Kabanov from the communications department of the Defense Ministry said the military is going to construct a TETRA network in the Moscow region using the 380-400 MHz band. Kabanov said an equipment supplier had been already chosen but would not name it.
