OREANDA-NEWS. October 2, 2012. This week Russia marks an important date: 500 days are left before the most important event of the coming years, the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. MegaFon as the general partner of the forthcoming games, carries out preliminary assessment of the readiness of the telecommunication infrastructure of Olympic venues.

Today MegaFon is completing the preparation for the first official test competitions at the Olympic venues that will start in November 2012. Network roll-out in the costal cluster has been completed by 60%, and at the alpine ski resort Krasnaya Polyan, where the main venues of the mountain cluster are located, more than 95% of communication sites intended to support the Games, are ready for operation. As at today approximately 400 2G/3G base stations and 190 4G base stations of MegaFon provide mobile coverage of Big Sochi.

On May 21st, 2012 MegaFon’s 4G network was put into pilot operation in Sochi. Today the data speed in the network is up to 50 Мbit/s. This is enough for immediate downloading of site pages, photos and online watching of videos. When preparing for the technical support of the Games MegaFon uses the successful global experience of its partners, including the practice of British operators that provided technical support of the summer Olympic Games in London.

‘We plan to complete the large-scale mobile roll-out in early 2013’, says Tigran Pogosyan, Deputy CEO, Head of Strategic Projects of MegaFon. ‘Then the final testing of network resilience under high traffic loads, unusual natural conditions and potential damages will be carried out.’ At present work is underway to provide indoor coverage at the Olympic venues that have already been built. By the beginning of the test competitions a high capacity systems for mobile communication will be launched at the main Olympic venues, the “Bolshoy” Ice Dome and the Skating Palace.