Belarusian state-owned national fixed line operator Beltelecom has announced the formal shutdown of its commercial WiMAX broadband wireless service in the country. In a statement on the PTO’s website, it confirmed that from 1 May 2017 the WiMAX service had been switched off, adding that the last remaining customers should seek to sign up to ‘other means of access’ to the world wide web.
Beltelecom has decided to abandon its WiMAX last mile service seven years after its launch in 2010. The network was only available in the capital Minsk and operated in the 3.5GHz band. Customers wishing to sign up to the citywide network each received a free modem and were promised data rates of up to 10Mbps/3Mbps (down/uplink). Until the switch off, Beltelecom was offering users a range of WiMAX tariffs under the ‘Homebody’ banner, with prices starting at BYN13 (USD6.99) per month for a 3Mbps/512kbps connection.