MOSCOW (WiMAX Day). The regional Russian GSM network operator Smarts has announced a joint venture with MetroMax that will bundle the WiMAX services of MetroMax with the GSM services of Smarts. According to a report in Kommersant, the cost of the joint venture will amount to some US$30 million over the next year.

The joint venture “will advance a package deal on the basis of overlapping standards GSM and WiMAX,” in sixteen regions where Smarts operates, said the company’s general director Andrey Girev. He added that by doing this, Smarts will be the first GSM operator in Russia to offered true 4G services.

In these regions, Smarts is the leading GSM operator with some 3.7 million subscribers, and in the Samara region, where the first project will launch this year, MetroMax has an 80% share of the broadband wireless access market, and some 14 % of the market for Internet access. MetroMax serves roughly 1,000 customers, the majority of which are corporate users. According to various reports, MetroMax has licenses for 2.5 ~ 2.7 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.8 GHz radio spectrum in 28 regions of Russia.

The initiative to bundle WiMAX and GSM services was taken by Smarts when it learned that it was unable to gain a license for 3G services in the regions. Girev said that it would be a long time before 3G could be launched in the regions, due to lack of available spectrum.

However, Girev said that the project with MetroMax will in fact offer a far better broadband package than would be possible with standard 3G technologies. For the moment, the joint venture partners will offer fixed WiMAX services, and mobile WiMAX will be offered when handsets are available.

In some regions of Russia where MetroMax is already established, it will use its existing infrastructure to offer the services, however in those regions where it does not operate, marketing and technical expertise will be shared jointly with Smarts, said MetroMax president Sergey Shvajkin. It is estimated that the investment in each region will be upwards of US$2 million each.