MegaFon Secures Approval to Buy LTE Operator, Scartel

Russia’s second largest mobile network operator, MegaFon has secured regulatory approval for its takeover of the WiMAX to LTE network operator, Scartel.

Scartel provides services under the Yota brand name.

Although officially competitors, the two companies are in fact controlled by the same investor, Alisher Usmanov, who owns just over 50% of MegaFon and 82% of Scartel.

The regulatory approval was granted by Russia’s anti-monopoly service, FAS, but has conditions to preserve competition in the market place.

MegaFon is currently deploying its own LTE network, but also has a reseller agreement with Scartel. A full merger of the two networks should reduce costs from a lack of overlapping coverage.