Russia is behind the U.S. and much of Europe when it comes to LTE adoption. Yet Russian mobile operators are starting to close the gap with their Western European counterparts in terms of LTE deployments, even though the government has never held an auction for LTE spectrum. However, Russian operators face several challenges in boosting LTE adoption, not the least of which is the large number of prepaid users in Russia and the fact that most of them remain connected to 2G networks. Geography and a lack of smartphone subsidies are two other clear challenges. Nonetheless, analysts and equipment vendors say Russian carriers are investing in LTE networks and pushing to catch up to grab more revenues from customers. Find out more about the Russian LTE market in this FierceWireless:Europe special report.
