Internet speed of different operators. Unlimited Internet from MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and Yota. Criteria for the "best rate"

It's amazing how much the world has changed in a quarter of a century. A few years ago, people received information from newspapers, books, radio and television networks. Now it is enough to reach the computer and click on the browser icon to open a window the width of the whole world. Moreover, even computers are no longer required to access the Internet. They are successfully supplemented (and in some cases replaced) by a smartphone.

What providers in Russia provide their users with access to the Internet with the latest science and technology? The answer to this vital question is given by the Speedtest web service from Ookla. The database of the service is the richest - at the moment it has conducted 21601897000 tests.

For determining the fastest mobile internet operators in Russia the company used the following method.

• First, the most influential providers of mobile Internet in the market were determined (from 3% and above the market share).
• Then, statistics on download and upload speeds were compiled for them. The weighted averages were taken from 10%, 50% and 90% of the traffic speed, and then combined in a ratio of 1:2:1.

Here's how speeds are distributed among the four largest Russian mobile operators.

Download speed- 11.63 Mbps.

Upload speed- 6.27 Mbps.

At the "yellow-striped" operator, data on mobile networks move as if they are not in a hurry. We do not know the reasons for this, but the result is obvious - according to the rating, Beeline's mobile Internet is more than two times behind the leader. Interestingly, the delay time for all four providers is about the same. Beeline practically does not differ from either MTS or MegaFon and even shows better results than Tele2 (49, 49, 50 and 57 ms, respectively).

Recently, Beeline entered into partnership agreements for the modernization of networks with one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world - Huawei, so perhaps the situation will change for the better.

3. Tele2

Download speed- 13.83 Mbps.

Upload speed- 6.50 Mbps.

Tele2 is constantly improving both its tariffs and data transmission capabilities. About a year ago, the operator began to use some of the latest technical solutions such as the self-optimizing network and the latest generation public access network. And recently, together with Nokia Tele2, they tested 5G technology.

Download speed- 15.49 Mbps.

Upload speed- 6.96 Mbps.

If Tele2 is merging with Nokia for testing 5G, then MTS prefer Ericsson. Most recently, both companies conducted field tests that showed that it is quite possible to overclock mobile Internet speeds up to 25 GB per second. Not bad, right?

Moreover, thanks to the optimization of its software, the use of new technologies, it is possible not only to increase the speed and coverage of the network, but also to reduce energy consumption. And it is both cheap and environmentally friendly.

Download speed- 24.68 Mbps.

Upload speed- 10.57 Mbps.

And MegaFon receives gold from Speedtest in the speed rating of Russian mobile operators in 2018. His technicians managed to achieve an impressive result, almost twice the next place on the list. MegaFon's average download speed reaches an impressive figure of 24.68 Mbps. It is surprising that MegaFon demonstrates this speed in old generation networks (2G, 3G and 4G). It’s scary to think what will happen in new networks (5G), but the company, like others participating in the rating, is testing new equipment. Interestingly, MegaFon is testing this jointly with the same Chinese telecommunications company Huawei as Beeline.

Even according to the results of Speedtest research, it is clear that mobile Internet works best in Moscow. There, the average speed of MegaFon is 37.36 Mbps. But in other cities the situation is not so brilliant. Even in St. Petersburg, which is considered one of the cities, the speed drops by almost a third and is only 23.18 Mbps.

Just 11 years ago, the number of mobile Internet users was a miserable 3% of the total population of the world wide web. Now the volume of traffic transmitted via mobile networks has reached an impressive 52.4%. Russia was no exception. Although the overall Internet mobilization of the country still leaves much to be desired (our country occupies a modest 78th place, somewhere between Malaysia and Chile), it continues to grow and develop. The Internet is not only becoming more accessible, but also faster.

On my trip, I took with me USB modems only from the Big Three operators, since they are the only ones that provide truly high-speed mobile Internet, that is, 3G.

To business. All three operators work well in the megacities of the Russian Federation. But when moving away from million-plus cities, the most interesting thing begins, namely, the real test of mobile 3G Internet. The best option for use when traveling through the expanses of our vast country is the mobile Internet from, as it has shown itself to be the best in terms of speed. It was the striped operator that had the highest data transfer rates in all the towns where BeeLine provided 3G! It's just a pity that BeeLine's 3G network coverage turned out to be the worst! At the same time, if you travel around cities and large towns, then, as a rule, BeeLine works there in 3G and you are guaranteed the fastest mobile Internet! It is better to ask about the coverage area in advance on the operator's website.

I will put the second best option. The connection speed with the network at MTS, far from megacities, although slower than that of BeeLine, is quite decent for all basic tasks! But the 3G coverage of the red operator is much better than that of the striped one. Here are just the most expensive tariffs are obtained. Again, tolerable if the Internet is really needed.

And I will give the third place which really disappointed me! The network coverage of the green operator is the best, but the speeds are very slow. MegaFon 3G catches even in small towns and villages (although not in all), but on the Internet it will not work not only to talk on Skype or see photos, but even checking mail can be unrealistic! I did not expect that the Internet from MegaFon would be so barely "crawling" away from major cities. Before the trip, I pinned all my hopes on MegaFon, I was sure that 3G Internet would be the best for him, but in practice it turned out to be exactly the opposite. I passed the information about too low speeds in 3G to MegaFon specialists, I hope that they will take it into account and correct the situation in the future. Well, today, that is, at the beginning of 2013, Beeline is the leader in our country !!

Moreover, 3G Internet from BeeLine turned out to be not only the fastest, but also the cheapest in all of Russia !! I really want to believe that specialists in the development and optimization of the BeeLine network will expand the coverage of the network in the near future, since no other shortcomings, except for a weak coverage, were found in BeeLine!

What can you say about 3G mobile internet? Share your experience in the comments, very interesting!

You know I'm an old paranoid. In our difficult time for the country, no one can be trusted. First of all, open Wi-Fi networks. Do you want to lose your passwords, bank card data and catch a virus? Welcome to public Wi-Fi! When I am in Moscow, I spend most of my time running around the city. Somewhere I took something off, somewhere I sat down, processed it and posted it. Previously, it was necessary to look for a cafe with the Internet. But for several years now, I have never connected to public Wi-Fi networks at all. What for? Mobile Internet works fine in Moscow. Few countries in the world will see such speed. At one time, I didn’t even have the Internet at home, since it was easier to distribute from the phone than to look for a provider and set up a router.

It is also important that the Internet is not only mobile, but also fast. After all, it’s not enough to write in a messenger, you need to record an online broadcast and watch a heavy video on YouTube.

A year ago, a fourth operator, Tele2, appeared in Moscow. And there is even more good internet. Today Tele2 claims that it has the fastest mobile Internet in the city - it was recognized as the best in Moscow three times.

Don't believe?

Here are the latest tests in different places.

The Bolshoi Theater has a download speed of just over 17 Mbps, and an upload speed of 19.7 Mbps.

At the Historical Museum, the speed is even better - the reception is 19.9 Mbps, and the transmission is 20.4 Mbps.

The State Duma has 18.9 Mbps for reception and 20 Mbps for transmission.

In my office on Tverskaya, the speed is worse - 17.3 Mbps for reception and 3 Mbps for transmission. In a building, the speed is always slightly worse than in the open air.

But they say this is not the limit and there are places where the Internet is even faster. Therefore, I ask you to help me find a place with the highest internet speed. Whoever does this will receive 5,000 rubles from us and Tele2 to the account.

What do we have to do?

1. Connect to Tele2 (if you haven't already) and check your mobile internet speed. This can be done in the SpeedTest application (here is the version for iPhone, Android and Windows).
2. Find the location with the fastest speed, and take a screenshot from the SpeedTest app.
3. Send a screenshot in the comments to this post and write where exactly you took it. Do not try to cheat - Tele2 will definitely check whether such a speed is really possible at the specified point.

Screenshots in the comments can be sent until Friday. Then, together with Tele2, we will select two people who recorded the highest speed in Moscow and the Moscow region, and transfer 5,000 rubles to their account. What can I spend 5,000 rubles with a Tele2 SIM card for?

Within 8 months, an unlimited number of times to call numbers in Moscow and the Moscow region.
- During the year, spend 10 GB of Internet traffic from your phone every month.
- Break the world record for 55 and a half hours of uninterrupted phone conversation (the current record is 54 hours and 5 minutes).

Well, everyone else can go to the Tele2 gift site, where every day you can receive bonuses from the company's partners. Or take part in a creative contest: create the Tele2 logo in different creative ways, take pictures and share photos on social networks with the hashtags #Tele2yeartogether and #MoscowSpeaks. For the most original options, you can get a year of free communication at the Blackest tariff, an annual subscription to a fitness center, an annual cinema subscription and other pleasant surprises.

The competition and gifts are dedicated to the anniversary of Tele2 in Moscow and the Moscow region. The company has something to celebrate: this year it managed to achieve many successes. She offered tariffs that were 25-40% cheaper than other operators, including the first and only tariff in the region with unlimited calls to phones of all operators. So the Big Three also had to cut prices. It turns out that regardless of whether you use a Tele2 SIM card or not, you still have something to thank the new operator for.

In terms of network coverage and quality, Tele2 caught up with the Big Three. I have already told you about the speed of mobile Internet - you can now check it yourself.

I wish Tele2 further success, and good luck to you in the contest;)

It is safe to say that the long-awaited third-generation communication has finally come to Ukraine in full. But which operator is the most attractive today in terms of price / quality / coverage in terms of high-speed mobile Internet?

To answer this question, I decided to evaluate the speed, cost and quality of coverage of the following operators: life:), Intertelecom, Kyivstar, MTS Ukraine and Trimob. We tested 3G internet speed in different parts of Kyiv at different times of the day: morning, afternoon, evening and night .

We evaluated the tariff plan in terms of the cost of 3G Internet, although together with 3G, operators can offer free package minutes and SMS, as well as a certain amount of mobile traffic using EDGE technology. The editors are aware that this testing cannot claim complete objectivity due to the technical reasons described below, but still allows us to draw some useful conclusions when choosing an operator and a tariff plan.

As you know, until recently, a subscriber who wanted to use high-speed mobile Internet services in Ukraine had practically no choice: either the Trimob operator with very limited coverage, or Intertelecom, which operates in a somewhat exotic CDMA 2000 standard for our country. Of course, there were a few other niche players, such as People. net, Freshtel, MTS 3 G Connect and others, however, they required the purchase of specific equipment, in addition, their coverage area and Internet speed were clearly insufficient.

And on February 23 this year, the National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the field of communications and informatization, to obtain licenses for 3G communications based on the widespread UMTS technology. As a result of the competition, licenses were obtained by three major players in the Ukrainian mobile market: Kyivstar, MTS Ukraine and life:). All Big Three operators have announced the deployment of 3G communications based on the latest dual-carrier HSPA+ radio technology. Recall that HSPA + is an evolution of HSPA (Evolved High-Speed ​​Packet Access) and theoretically allows you to achieve download speeds of up to 43.2 Mbps and uploads of up to 5.76 Mbps. HSPA+ technology is the pinnacle of the 3G standard today- due to its high performance, it is even called 3.75G.

Already at the beginning of March, the Kyivstar operator offered the media the speed of its 3G Internet in laboratory conditions, at the beginning of April Life:) 3G for everyone in their customer service centers. Since the beginning of June, both operators have announced the launch of 3G networks in Kyiv, Lvov, Odessa, as well as dozens of other cities in Ukraine. Until the end of the year, operators promise to cover all regional centers of our country.

Technical features

Although theoretically HSPA+ technology can achieve download speeds of up to 43.2 Mbps and uploads of up to 5.76 Mbps, in real conditions such throughput cannot be obtained. Firstly, the speed of mobile Internet is affected by distance of the subscriber from the base station. The further it is, the more data packets are lost during transmission, respectively, they have to be retransmitted, which reduces the speed.

Secondly, the speed of the Internet channel is affected by number of subscribers currently connected to the base station. The total bandwidth of the "cell" is divided into all users connected to it, and unevenly: the closer the subscriber is to the base station, the higher the speed he will receive. Accordingly, if the peak throughput of one sector of the base station is 42 Mbps, then when two subscribers connect to it, each will receive 21 Mbps, but provided that they are equidistant from it. Otherwise, the speed of the Internet for each of them will be different. At the same time, HSPA+ technology allows the subscriber's smartphone connect to two base stations at the same time, which provides a higher quality connection. So, let's move on to the test results.

life:)

The Astelit operator, which provides mobile communication services under the life:) brand, paid UAH 650 million more for a 3G license than the rest of the tender participants - UAH 3.355 billion. True, the operator got, according to some experts, the "cleanest" frequency bands. Astelit was the first to launch 3G communication in Kyiv and Lvov - on June 4 and May 19, respectively. As a result, at the end of June, the total consumption of 3G+ mobile Internet reached 147 TB in Kyiv and 17 TB in Lviv, which means an increase of 60% and 47%, respectively. According to the operator, approximately 40% of 3G traffic is accounted for by such services as Youtube, Play Market, Cloud and others. On average, life:) subscribers watch about 7.5 thousand hours of Youtube video per day.

Life:) 3G Internet throughput estimation in our test showed the most interesting results. At certain points, the download speed, measured using the Speedtest application from Ookla, reached 17-23 Mbps, and the upload speed - 4.36 Mbps. We note right away that none of the other operators could demonstrate such peak performance. The average download speed was 5-7 Mbps.

life:) showed the best 3G internet speed among all operators in our testing

It is noteworthy that our assessment of Astelit as the fastest operator correlates with the data of the Global Net Index report from Ookla, which is based on speed tests on iOS and Android. 3G network from life:) demonstrated in Kyiv the highest download speed (downlink) with a result of 7.54 Mbps.

According to the Global Net Index from Ookla, 3G network from life:) in Kyiv showed the highest download speed

Coating

The 3G network from life:) in Kyiv works stably, the coverage is quite good. Currently, the operator is testing the 3G network in Odessa, there is every reason to believe that the network will continue to be built at an accelerated pace. The current coverage of the 3G network can be tracked on the website.

Prices

The operator offers several 3G tariff plans for new and existing subscribers. As you can see from the information below, the most profitable package is "3G+ GADGET" with a prepaid traffic volume of 8 GB. In this case, the cost of 1 GB of traffic will be UAH 28.12.
"3G+ Smartphone"/ "VIP 3G+ Smartphone"

"Intertelecom"

In September 2011, the Intertelecom operator carried out a commercial launch of CDMA 2000 EV-DO Rev.B technology in all regions of Ukraine, which ensured data exchange at speeds up to 14.7 Mbps. Recall that the history of this technology began in 1999, when the American company Qualcomm developed the first version of the standard, providing for a downstream speed of at least 2 MB per second. In February 2002, the commercial operation of EVDO Release 0 technology was launched, the standard provided for a peak speed of 2.4 Mbps in the downlink and 153 Kbps in the uplink.

For a long time, CDMA 2000 EV-DO Rev.A and Rev.B were successful only in the corporate segment, as they required purchase of expensive specific equipment. Ordinary UMTS devices (the most common in our country) will not work in such a network. However, many versions of the Apple iPhone 5/5S/6, as well as some devices manufactured by Samsung, Motorola and other manufacturers support this communication standard. To find out which communication standard your smartphone supports, you need to go to the OS settings: for a CDMA smartphone, the MEID identifier will be indicated there, for a GSM device, the IMEI identifier. To install a custom settings profile required to support EV-DO Rev. B, you will have to drive to one of the operator's service centers, the subscriber will not be able to install them on his own.

The maximum speed that was recorded in the Intertelecom network was 8.35 Mbps

Internet access through the operator's network was carried out using a Huawei EC 5321 (Rev.B) mobile Wi-Fi router. The maximum speed that could be obtained - 8.35 Mbps download and 2.57 Mbps upload. The average speed was from 2 to 3 Mbps. It should be noted that the number of Intertelecom's 3G subscribers is already a relatively stable value, in contrast to the Big Three operators, whose number of 3G subscribers will grow exponentially in the near future. Therefore, the speed indicated above can be considered as an established value.

Internet access via the operator's 3G network was carried out using a mobile Wi-Fi router Huawei EC 5321 (Rev.B)

Coating

Prices

Intertelecom offers 7 tariff plans: three of them pay only for the day you use the operator's services, four more provide for monthly payment. The maximum tariff plan Vіlniy den+ offers 45 GB of traffic per month for 210 UAH. Thus, 1 GB of traffic will cost less than 5 UAH, and this is the lowest price on the market for tariff plans with per MB payment. Another advantage of 3G Internet from this operator is a network with nationwide coverage. Among the minuses is the need to purchase additional expensive equipment, for example, a mobile Wi-Fi router.

When the article was being typeset, Intertelecom announced the launch of a new completely unlimited offer "Super 3G Unlimited" for 299 UAH per month, as well as updating other tariff plans.

Kyivstar

The operator launched the 3G network in Kyiv and its suburbs on June 16. According to Kyivstar, more than 300,000 subscribers daily use services in the 3G network, each of them spends 27.9 Mb on average. This is 76.1% more than it was before the launch of 3G.

In the new tariff plans "Smartphone+", "Smartphone Extra" for prepaid and "All for ..." for the contract traffic in social networks is not charged. Subscribers can use Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki without spending package megabytes. The volume of such non-tariffed traffic amounted to 17% of the total 3G traffic of subscribers of tariff plans, on average subscribers spend 13.4 Mb per day on social media surfing.

3.86 Mbps for data transfer - one of the highest rates obtained during testing

The highest speed that was recorded during testing was 7.86 Mbps download and 3.86 Mbps upload. The average speed was in the range of 3-5 Mbps.

Consolidated test results of 3G-Internet in Kyivstar network

Coating

To date, Kyivstar has opened a 3G network for commercial use already in 87 settlements of Ukraine, including Kyiv, Lvov, Kamenetz-Podolsky, resorts in Western Ukraine and the Black Sea. Technical testing is being carried out in more than 90 cities, including such regional centers as Vinnitsa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnitsky. You can get up-to-date information about 3G coverage on the website.

Prices

The operator offers 6 tariff plans, which include the amount of traffic from 100 MB per day to 7 GB per month; There are also tariffs for existing subscribers. It should be noted that 3G traffic in the Kyivstar network costs expensive, the minimum price is 50 UAH for 1 GB(tariff of 3000 MB of data for 150 UAH per month).

** - payment is charged only on the day of use

Internet packages for existing subscribers

MTS

Operator "MTS Ukraine", the only one of the "Big Three" started deploying only internal networks 3G(the so-called indoor networks, that is, inside buildings). Within a month, more than 50 internal 3G networks were launched in Kyiv and the region, including exhibition centers, sports clubs, shopping and entertainment centers, business centers and offices. Also, recently, internal 3G networks have been built at the largest airports in the country: Lviv International Airport named after. D. Galitsky, Odessa International Airport and Kyiv International Airport (Zhulyany).

The operator motivates this by the fact that the penetrating power of UMTS 2100 MHz is half that of GSM 900/1800 (2G), so high-density antennas are required to provide quality indoor services. For example, in the Ocean Plaza shopping center (Kyiv), the coating is created over 100 antennas, which provides higher speeds than a Wi-Fi network with a minimum base station power.

But the real reason for this behavior of the operator, obviously, lies elsewhere. Some time ago, the media reported that MTS Ukraine was negotiating with major international telecommunications operators about buying the rights to use their brands in Ukraine. Among the most likely candidates, with whom MTS Ukraine signed a non-equity agreement on cooperation in the field of marketing and testing of new technologies back in 2008. Apparently, it was after such a rebranding, when MTS may becomeVodafone, and active construction of a 3G network throughout Ukraine will begin.

In the process of testing indoor 3G, we managed to fix the maximum speed 7.58 Mbps and 4 Mbps for data transfer from the base station and back. The 3G signal is also well caught outside the premises, but only within a radius of 50-100 m. But it’s hard to say what the speed of the mobile Internet will be after the operator begins to roll out 3G networks on a full scale.

Internet speed at a distance of 100 m from the cell indoor 3G MTS

Coating

A detailed list of premises where indoor 3G networks are deployed is available at the link. Outdoor high speed internet service provided on the basis of national roaming with the TriMob operator.

Prices

3G indoor traffic with MTC 3G coverage provided without additional payment, within the existingEDGE- tariffs of subscribers. For example, for UAH 3 per day, a subscriber can receive unlimited high-speed Internet traffic, but only indoors withindoor-coated. Prices for 3G-connection based on national roaming with TriMob are given below. We see no point in analyzing them, since these are temporary tariffs. Let's just say that they differ in a big way from the tariffs of Trimob itself.

"TriMob"

Until recently, TriMob, owned by PJSC Ukrtelecom, was the onlythoperator in UkraineohmprovidingmUMTS/WCDMA mobile communication servicesat 2100 MHz. The company launched its UMTS network November 1, 2007. TriMob uses HSDPA technology, in which the maximum mobile Internet speed for receiving data reaches 7.2 Mbps. Despite the fact that the operator held a monopoly position in the market for many years, it practically did not develop its network. As a result, the number of its subscribers does not exceed 0.5 million, which is an order of magnitude lower than its competitors. Today it is difficult to say what the future holds for TriMob with its outdated technology and very limited coverage, most likely, it will soon be bought out by one of the larger players.

The average data download speed during testing was 1-2 Mbps, maximum - 5 Mbps.

Sometimes it was possible to get “amazing” 5 Mbps on data download

Coating

Today, the TriMob cellular network is deployed in Kyiv and some districts of the Kiev region, in regional centers and some large regional and tourist centers. For data transfer in national roaming GPRS or EDGE networks of other operators are used. A detailed coverage map can be found at the link.

Prices

Since TriMob cannot boast of high speed 3G Internet and national coverage, the operator offered enough democratic prices for their services. 4.5 GB of traffic per month will cost UAH 65, which is much less than the Big Three operators. In addition, until recently, TriMob was the only player on the market offering unlimited traffic for 296 UAH per month.

Results. How to determine the "golden" mean?

Based on the test results, we decided not to publish the rating of the most optimal operators in terms of price / quality ratio, but only to get by with a few tips. The fact is that the situation on the market is changing very quickly - the “big three” are actively building new networks and, quite possibly, will soon begin to aggressively dump prices.

Currently the cheapest rates for 3G-internet and a fairly stable speed are offered by Intertelecom, while the operator already operates a network with nationwide coverage. In second place in terms of prices follows " TriMob. By the way, only these two operators offer unlimited data plans.. At the same time, both providers do not use the fastest communication technology today, and TriMob also has very poor coverage.

Obviously, the future belongs to the market players using the latest HSPA+ technology. In terms of speed, Life is still holding the leadership position here :), Kyivstar is a little behind. It is not entirely correct to assess the bandwidth of MTS Ukraine radio channels, which has deployed only internal 3G networks, because most of the subscribers are interested in outdoor coverage (Wi-Fi is usually available inside the mall and other premises). Operators of the "big three" so far offer very high rates for 3G-the Internet, they are much more expensive than the prices from Intertelecom and TriMob. But there is reason to believe that as networks are built and new subscribers are connected 3G tariffs will drop rapidly.

In less than a year - from December last year to November this year - the speed of mobile Internet in Moscow has grown by 35-40%, according to a Telecom Daily report. The leader in speed in the capital and Moscow region networks 3G - Tele2, fourth-generation mobile communications (LTE) - " Megaphone» (see graph).

A year ago, Telecom Daily also recorded the highest average data download speed of just over 7 Mbps in the Moscow Tele2 network. The best result on the LTE network (a little over 19 Mbps) was then MTS. From the materials of Telecom Daily it follows that the most noticeable increase (by more than 70%) over the year was the increase in the speed of access in the 3G network of Tele2, the least (by about 38%) - in the network of the third generation of MegaFon. Most of all, the average speed on the LTE network increased at MegaFon (by 52%), the smallest increase was at MTS (12.5%).

A year earlier, the average access speed in Moscow networks decreased by 15%, says Telecom Daily CEO Denis Kuskov. This was due to a sharp increase in smartphones and tablets among subscribers, he notes. However, this trend was typical for the whole of Russia. According to Telecom Daily, the average data transfer rate in LTE networks in Russian million-plus cities decreased from December 2014 to May-June 2016 by 10–12%.

But in Moscow, by the end of 2016, the situation was reversed due to the construction of new base stations, says Kuskov. Some influence on growth of speed was rendered also by gradual introduction by operators of more high-speed data transmission technology LTE-advanced (LTE-A), he notes.

A Tele2 representative says that over the year the number of base stations in the Moscow network has increased from about 7,000 to 10,000. His colleague from MTS, Dmitry Solodovnikov, does not name an increase, but indicates that there are about 30,000 stations in the operator's network. MegaFon has 28,000 stations, of which about 7,000 support LTE, says Yulia Dorokhin, a representative of the operator. " Vimpelcom This figure is not disclosed. The representative of the company only says that the operator is carrying out a large-scale modernization of the network - its capacity and data transfer rate are growing.

Infrastructure director of the metropolitan branch of "MegaFon" Yevgeny Novoselov generally agrees with the conclusions of Telecom Daily.

MegaFon is the best in terms of voice quality, as well as in terms of data transfer rates in LTE and LTE-A in Moscow and the region, he claims, referring to research data. In 2016, MegaFon's capital expenditures in Moscow generally remain at the level of 2015, he notes. According to him, MegaFon is increasing the access speed by mastering the 1800 MHz frequency band. Despite the fact that he historically has the widest frequency band in Moscow in the 2.6 GHz LTE band, he recalls.

The results of Telecom Daily's research are bewildering: MTS's capital costs are higher than those of any of its competitors, but at the same time, MTS's results in Telecom Daily's research are consistently a third lower than the real ones, Solodovnikov is indignant. In addition, the agency is not investigating coverage, he argues. Leadership in mobile Internet speeds is meaningless if the operator covers only part of the territory. These data have no practical significance, Solodovnikov is sure.

It is not the test data that matters to subscribers, but their own user experience, says Alexander Galchenkov, head of the quality and technical audit department at Vimpelcom.

Based on the research methodology presented by Telecom Daily, the conclusions are trustworthy, says iKS-Consulting consultant Maxim Savvatin. According to him, now the speed of mobile access in Moscow is at the level of the largest cities in the world, at least in Europe. According to Savvatin, the speed of mobile access in Moscow will continue to grow due to the spread of LTE-A, based on the aggregation of frequencies of different bands (mainly 1800 MHz and 2.6 GHz). The development of this technology is still held back by the fact that relatively few smartphones support it, but as their fleet is updated, the problem will be solved, Savvatin is convinced.

In the coming years, the speed of mobile Internet is unlikely to grow significantly: the number of LTE users will increase, along with it, the load on the networks, and strong technological changes are not expected on the networks of operators, says Konstantin Ankilov, CEO of TMT Consulting. According to him, the situation will change in 2020, when fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks will appear in Russia, as well as around the world. Hardware makers are promising access up to two orders of magnitude faster than current LTE networks, he says.