NIZHNY NOVGOROD, May 18. /TASS/. At the CIPR conference, MTS unveiled an airborne complex with an LTE/5G base station mounted on a hexacopter — an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with six rotors, the company's press service told TASS.

"Such complexes are designed to provide LTE/5G mobile communications in areas where they are unavailable: in sparsely populated or remote regions for various purposes, including mass events, agricultural work, environmental monitoring, emergency response, and search and rescue operations. The solution can also be used to establish dedicated Private LTE/5G networks," the company said in a statement.

By early 2028, the operator plans to deploy several dozen such complexes across its branches nationwide.

The hexacopter, hovering 100-200 meters above the ground, is held by a tether and can provide radio coverage for three days within a 10-15 km radius, regardless of terrain. MTS is confident that it can be deployed by two specialists in 30 minutes, "virtually anywhere a four-wheel drive vehicle can reach."

The Aeromobile Communications Complex is controlled and maintained by an operator located in a van. To connect the complex to the MTS network, it requires a satellite connection or fiber optic cable.

The hexacopter featured carries a serial base station from the vendor Irteya. In tests of the 5G base station, data rates of up to 1.2 Gbps were achieved.