Kazakhstan to build 7,000 5G stations by 2025

Kazakhstan plans to build 7,000 5G stations by 2025 as part of the national plan "Technological breakthrough through digitalization, science and innovation," the country's Vice Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry Askhat Orazbek said, Report informs via Sputnik-Kazakhstan.

According to Askhat Orazbek, the cost of each of the lots offered by the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the country for the assignment of radio frequency bands for 5G increased several dozen times during the auctions.

Thus, each of the lots in the frequency bands 3,600-3,700 MHz (100 MHz) and 3,700-3,800 MHz (100 MHz) was initially offered at 1.76 billion tenges (about $3.8 million).

As a result of the auction, the cost of the first hundred megahertz rose to 62.7 billion tenges ($132.5 million), and the offer for the second lot amounted to a record 93.4 billion tenges ($201.6 million), Orazbek emphasized.

He said the winner was the consortium represented by Kcell JSC and Mobile Telecom Service LLP, known under the Tele 2 and Altel brands.

"The introduction of 5G technology provides high data rates of up to 1 Gbps, lower latency, and supports more users, devices and services. Also, this technology is more efficient for smart cities and business services, industrial automation, unmanned vehicles, and others," Askhat Orazbek noted.

The representative of the consortium, general director of LLP Mobile Telecom-Service Sergey Konkov noted that for the market, this is the first experience of buying frequencies at an auction.

"For us, the 5G implementation project is a tremendous amount of investment and work of technical specialists. By the end of 2025, Kcell and Tele2/Altel plan to build over 7,000 5G base stations," Sergey Konkov said.

According to him, Kazakhstan has every chance to become the first in Central Asia and the CIS to develop 5G technology.