Green light from the military awaited for 3G

A meeting of the State Committee for Radio Frequencies was held recently, linked with the development of 3G, third generation cellular communications. These networks were demonstrated in Moscow back in 2002. Head of the Ministry for IT and Communications Leonid Reiman promised that licences would be issued to operators in 2004 if the equipment for the 3G networks were accessible. A representative from the operator Megafon informed that the company is already prepared to operate on the new frequencies, but there are still no business plans for 3G. One of the reasons for this is that the Ministry of Defence does not want to issue licences to operators on the GSM frequency in the 1800MHz range and the frequencies for third-generation cellular communications equipment (1900-2200MHz). The military talks of a threat to national security, but experts believe that no such threat exists, because all military equipment could be “shifted” to other frequencies, as is already done the world over.