How it started
History
The company began commercial operations to provide mobile communications services and sell mobile communications devices on 16 April 1999 under the brand name JV LLC Mobile digital communication, and became the first GSM carrier in Belarus (the country's first cellular operator was the NMT carrier BelCel).
Ten base stations (nine in Minsk and one in Arešniki on the way to the National Airport Minsk) had been launched by the time commercial operations started. By the summer of 2000, all regional cities of Belarus had been connected to the network. Mobile communications services were available on the Minsk-Brest-Orša highway and in settlements along the road. Since 23 April 2007, mobile communications have been available to 100% of Belarus's urban population. In April 2019, the operator launched the first GSM network in the Polesye State Radiation-Ecological Reserve.
On 15 March 2001, the operator subscribers were enabled to send and receive texts (SMS), and in 2005, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) became available.
On 2 June 2003, the carrier launched the GPRS service. In December 2005, EDGE technology became available in three regions of Belarus.
On 30 March 2006, the company became the country's first carrier to start testing the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications technology. The 3G network was rolled out in only 27 days. The commercial operation of the 3G network in Minsk and Homieĺ started on 17 March 2010. In February 2016, the company became the country's first carrier to launch a 3G network in the 900 MHz band, and in May 2019, it further improved the capacity of its 3G network being the first operator to add a fourth RF carrier in the 2100 MHz band to its base stations.
From Wikipedia’s article on A1 Belarus, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2