Russia’s Sistema has secured a national telecom licence through its subsidiary Shyam Telelink that covers the whole of India. According to Russian reports, it will have to pay in the region of $650 million (€437.2 million) for the licence, though can subsequently be expected to invest between $4 billion and $7 billion in rolling out a national network in India. Sistema owns MTS, Russia’s leading mobile company, and will seek to cash in on India’s rapidly expanding mobile sector, which currently has around 300 million users, or around one in four of the population.
