Major Russian telecom operators have announced their technical readiness to launch 5G networks in 2026. Details were revealed at the "Telecom 2026" forum.
It seems to me that we have been waiting for this 5G in Russia for so long that we have already managed to prepare, and even got a little tired of this waiting.
A lot of work was done in the second half of 2025, confirmed Sergey Anokhin, CEO of Beeline. According to him, in 2026 in Russia "there will be one more G".
Technologically, I think all operators are ready. Most of the equipment is 5G-Ready, we are ready to deploy it.
MTS has already invested about 30 billion rubles in infrastructure. Currently, the share of equipment technically ready for 5G is about 70%.
Anokhin, in turn, admitted that the situation for 5G, which is now possible in Russia, will not provide breakthrough user scenarios in most of the country.
Operators failed to obtain the "Golden Range" of frequencies (3.4–3.8 GHz) for 5G, so connection speeds 10–20 times higher will not be available yet, explained Khachatur Pombukhchan, CEO of Megafon. The range they received will provide a good service, but "there are no commercial cases for such speeds for ordinary users in the world".
Legacy ranges—those on which all clients are currently served—will only provide a speed increase of about 20%. According to MTS, approximately 37% of devices in Russia currently support 5G. But if you remove Apple and Samsung, whose 5G is blocked by manufacturers for Russia, only about 15% will remain.
Therefore, you should not expect anything fantastic in terms of the introduction and launch of the 5G standard.