The mobile market dominates Uzbekistan’s telecoms sector in terms of penetration, revenue, and growth. There are four major operators providing a modicum of competition; three of the four are government-owned entities although private operator Beeline Uzbekistan has been able to capture up to a third of the market. The last two Covid-affected years have proved challenging for Beeline, in particular, but its most recent operating results suggest a turnaround in the company’s fortunes is under way. Overall, the mobile market is expected to reach 100% penetration in 2023 – a 50% increase in the last five years.
At the end of 2020, Uzbekistan embarked on a “Digital Uzbekistan 2030” strategy to stimulate the country’s digital transformation across various industries. To achieve this, Uzbekistan is expanding its telecommunication infrastructure to improve communication quality and close the urban-rural divide (50% of the population lives in rural areas) by inking several partnerships. VEON, Beeline Uzbekistan’s parent company, announced in May 2022 that it would invest $250 million over the next five years to develop the communications infrastructure and ecosystem of digital services in Uzbekistan to support Digital Uzbekistan 2030.
Andrzej Malinowski, the CEO of Beeline Uzbekistan, acknowledges that “there is a clear understanding that (mobile) is a driver of the economy and the best way to further improve education level within the country. We want to enable remote education and build an education platform as a social project, make it zero-rated and available to all”.
VEON also announced it would advise and provide digitalization services to the Uzbek government during the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). In September 2022, state-backed Uzbektelecom signed eight contracts with Huawei and ZTE worth $506.8 million. The deal, backed by Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (MITC), to implement a telecommunication network and infrastructure across the western and eastern regions of the country in two phases to deliver expanded population coverage and QoS. Furthermore, Uzbektelecom has also signed a contract with four Japanese companies — NTT, NEC, Toyota Tsusho, and Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) — to deploy a telecommunications infrastructure development project to provide data center and telecommunication infrastructure to enable “Digital Uzbekistan 2030”.
Uzbekistan's 4 national GSM-based network operators are: Mobiuz (formerly UMS), Beeline, Ucell and Uztelecom (Uzmobile).
2G/GSM is on 900 and 1800 MHz, 3G on 2100 MHz. 4G/LTE has started on 2600 MHz (B7) on Ucell and Beeline on 850 MHz (B5, B18) with additional 700 MHz on Ucell, 800 MHz (B20) on Mobi.uz, 1800 MHz (B1) on Uztelecom and with EVO using TDD-LTE on 2300 MHz (B40) dubbed as "Super iMAX". For many years Uzbekistan has been struggling to bring its telecommunications system up to the standard found in developed countries. Over the last two decades the situation has been gradually transforming, but coverage and speeds are still quite low outside the major population centers.
Uzbekistan’s state operator Mobiuz has embarked on a wide-reaching modernisation of its network in order to boost capacity and quality of service.
Mobiuz has begun offering 5G services in areas of Tashkent. All Mobiuz subscribers with 5G-capable devices can activate the service to access data speeds of “up to 300Mbps” free of charge. In addition, the operator has introduced a new 5G tariff priced at a monthly rate of UZS75,000 (US$6.80) that it claims can deliver speeds as high as 1Gbps. Mobiuz has also claimed that 5G users will experience substantial latency improvements.
The network is currently powered by eight 5G base stations located around the city. Mobiuz has received a soft loan of US$150 million from the Chinese state in August 2019 to help the operator invest in its network up until 2023 – including substantial equipment overhauls, nationwide 3G & 4G coverage expansion, internet upgrade and the implementation of 5G - all using equipment provided by Huawei.
The operator also has16 5G base stations operational in test mode in the city of Samarkand. In Samarkand, Mobiuz’s 5G base stations were initially installed at the ‘Silk Road Samarkand’ tourism centre, in central districts of the city, at the main railway station and at the Mobiuz Service Centre.
Beeline is the second provider in the country. It's controlled by Russian-backed Veon (formely VimpelCom).
Recently Beeline network has launched mobile connectivity across the metro service in the capital city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The new Beeline Uzbekistan coverage will provide 4G connectivity at all 31 underground stations on the four lines of the metro service. In 2022, the Tashkent metro enabled 220 million passenger journeys or a daily average of around 620,000 riders.
The expansion of 4G coverage to the Tashkent metro is part of Beeline’s ‘4G for all’ strategy, which saw the roll out of 2,300 4G base stations in 2022. The Beeline Uzbekistan network for the Tashkent Metro was developed using the Uztelecom infrastructure based on multi-operator RAN active equipment and sharing technology.
As of late 2021, Ucell has been servicing 7+ million subscribers with its 4G networks covering nearly 75% of the country’s major cities and towns. The company was the first to roll out a 5G network in Uzbekistan in the central business district of the capital city Tashkent on 8 April 2021. The company claimed that ‘real-world 5G speeds are approximately 1Gbps’ from launch, highlighting that ‘the data transfer rate is 10-100 times higher than 4G technology.’ Users can connect to 5G via Ucell sales and service offices in Tashkent or via a call centre.
Up until 31 May 2021 5G-capable device owners can sign up for a promotional Ucell 5G data package valid for five days costing UZS5,000 (USD0.48), allowing unlimited 5G internet usage ‘at up to 1Gbps’ within the central Tashkent coverage area. Ucell’s website confirmed that the new network uses 5G Band 78 (3500MHz) frequencies, with mobile USB/modem/router devices supported alongside smartphones. The website also states that ‘Ucell is developing new territories and very soon the technology will become available in other areas of the city and other cities of Uzbekistan.’
Uztelecom used to be a CDMA-only provider on 450 MHz (CDMA 2000 1x). In 2015 they started with GSM in 2G and 3G in Tashkent. They are the smallest GSM-provider in the country with a limited GSM coverage so far and only 5% of the country's users. Nationwide service extension is under way and 4G/LTE has started in 2017 on 1800 MHz (band 3). It's still the smallest, but fastest growing provider in the country.
In March 2023 Uztelecom began a mobile network upgrade project which includes deployment of 5G technology alongside 4G LTE coverage expansion and data speed improvements. Over 3,000 existing base stations throughout the country will be modernised alongside the rollout of more than 2,000 new base stations under the ‘Season of Renewal’ project.
In the first stage of the project, they plan to achieve ‘full’ 5G network coverage of the capital Tashkent plus ‘partial’ 5G coverage in regional centre cities, following which plans for subsequent stages of 5G expansion across the country ‘will be analysed’. The company also declared that it will be the first Uzbek network operator to provide 5G access on flagship smartphones, including Apple iPhone devices.
Uzbektelecom (Uztelecom) have previously signed deals including a 3G/4G/5G expansion worth over USD500 million with Huawei and ZTE in September 2022. Since July that year the telco operates a limited pilot 5G network in Samarkand.
Related Posts:
- Operator Watch Blog - Emerging 5G Markets: Uzbekistan
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