Digital future of the telecom industry was discussed at Russian Week of High Technologies

The event programme of Russian Week of High Technologies 2020 at EXPOCENTRE Fairgrounds was opened with a plenary session of the Sviaz 2020 Forum: Digital Future of Telecom Industry. This year’s main topic is the Digital Economy and the Telecom Industry: Towards a New Reality.

The event was organised by EXPOCENTRE AO and RBC with support of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, the Russian State Duma Committee on Education and Science, the Expert Council on Scientific and Technological Development and Intellectual Property of the Russian State Duma Committee on Education and Science.

The discussed topics included the issues of development of digital economy in Russia, ways to assess the efficiency of implementation of new technologies, and plans of telecom operators related to digital transformation and implementation of 5G networks.

The event was moderated by Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federal Assembly, Chairman of the Organising Committee of NTI Expo (Research-Technology-Innovations Expo) Vladimir Kononov and anchor at RBC TV Anna Gara. 

In his welcome speech, Mr. Kononov said that the traditional business of telecom companies was step by step becoming a thing of the past. Today, these companies have new challenges and new opportunities. “The future of the industry is closely connected with such terms as cloud services, IoT, 5G, Big Data, and mobile finances.”

Director of the Department of Radio Frequencies and Communication Networks Regulation of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Andrey Kantsurov talked about implementation of 5G pilot projects in several industry sectors. For instance, MTS deployed a network for Sibur-Khimprom in Perm and a network for KAMAZ PAO in Naberezhnye Chelny. Vimpelcom PAO deployed a network in Khakassia on the territory of the Chernogorsky coal mine. Megafon did it in the Kemerovo oblast at the Listvyazhnaya mine. The ministry representative emphasized the fact that 5G networks in Russia would be built with the equipment developed and made by Russian manufacturers. These manufacturers are to be included in the special register granting the status of telecommunications equipment of Russian origin.

Head of the Department of Radioelectronic Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Vasiliy Shpak called telecom operators to pay more attention to diversification of vendors whose equipment is used to make the networks. “There must be a warranty on the equipment that it will be sold, maintained and upgraded. And only a domestic manufacturer will be able to give such guarantees to our service providers,” said Mr. Shpak.

Deputy Head of the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow Alexander Gorbatko shared his experience of implementing different services in the city. He talked about services that make the city life comfortable and convenient, and boost development of a large number of companies, business and production.

Megafon Strategy and Business Development Director Alexander Sobolev talked about the Megafon 1440 project. One of its tasks is to solve the problem of digital inequality in Russia. The company plans to invest six billion rubles in designing a system for satellite data transmission and to launch its first satellites into space in five years. "We have a challenging technical task to tackle which is to provide a transport network using low-orbit satellites. The main goal is to make the high bandwidth network in order to give end users the high speed Internet. The Megafon 1440 project is named after the first satellite launched by our country, which made exactly 1440 turns around the Earth," said Mr. Sobolev.

Other participants included MTS Vice President for Cloud & Digital Solutions Dmitry Khalin, CEO of Micron PAO and Consortium ANO Telecommunications Technologies Gulnara Hasyanova, Director of IT Information Infrastructure at Data Economy Roman Yakovlev, and other experts.

To learn more about Russian Week of High Technologies, go to https://www.sviaz-expo.ru/en

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO