MTS (telecommunications)
Russian telecommunications company
MTS (Mobile TeleSystems) (Russian: МТС «Мобильные ТелеСистемы») is the largest telecommunications company and mobile network operator in Russia and Belarus, headquartered in Moscow, operating on GSM, UMTS, LTE and 5G standards. Apart from cellular network, the company also offers local telephone service, broadband, mobile television, cable television, satellite television and digital television.
As of Q3 2024, the company serves over 87.6 million subscribers in Russia (81.9 million) and Belarus (5.7 million). MTS had previously operated in Uzbekistan until 2012, Turkmenistan until 2017, Ukraine until 2015 and Armenia until 2024.
MTS Russia
In 1994, a joint venture of Moscow City Telephone Network, T-Mobile and Siemens, which later MTS GSM (Mobile TeleSystems) became part of Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), offered Russia's MTS GSM first mobile phone service "Mobile Telecommunications" (Russian: Мобильные ТелеСвязи) for the public in Moscow. In the same year in June, VimpelCom also started Beeline mobile phone service. MTS, having started Mobile TeleSystems in the Moscow license zone in 1994, received licenses in 1997 for further areas and began expansion across Russia, later entering other countries of the CIS.
In 2009, MTS acquired several independent mobile retail chains, creating MTS monobrand retail network of 3300 stores — the second largest retail network in Russia. Also in 2009 MTS started marketing MTS-branded mobile handsets. In 2010, MTS became the 5th best selling handset brand in Russia, after Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.
In 2010, MTS announced the acquisition of 62% of Comstar's stock, the largest Russian fixed internet and cable TV provider, serving 7.5 million households.
The public source identifies “MTS (telecommunications)” as russian telecommunications company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around telecommunications, Russian and company.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1368919. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 2012, 2017 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “MTS (telecommunications)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.