Hundreds of thousands of football fans will get enjoy higher data speeds in seven of the 11 tournament cities in Russia during the World Cup tournament.

This will be made possible by Ericsson and Russian service provider MTS who have teamed up to provide a superior mobile broadband experience through one of Europe’s largest deployments of Massive MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) to date.

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In Moscow alone, the deployment covers two stadiums and fan zones, Sheremetyevo airport, Red Square, Tverskaya Street and Gorky Central Park.

Saint Petersburg coverage includes stadium and fan zones, Dvortsovaya Square, and Moskovsky railway station. The other covered cities are Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Niznny Novgorod, Samara and Rostov-on-Don.

High speed Internet will also be available in selected transportation hot spots and at some of Russia’s most famous landmarks.

Ericssion said that the New Radio (NR)-capable radio designed for compatibility with the 5G New Radio standard features 64 transmit and 64 receive antennas enabling it to support 5G plug-ins for both Massive MIMO and Multi-User MIMO.

“Through the intelligent reuse of system resources, Massive MIMO improves capacity by transmitting data to multiple user devices using the same time and frequency resources with coordinated beam forming and beam steering,” said Ericssion in a statement.

Underling that Massive MIMO is making it easier for operators to evolve their networks for a 5G future, Ericsson said that it includes 5G Plug-ins, “which are based on many of the same breakthrough capabilities in our award-winning 5G Radio Test Bed and 5G Radio Prototypes, currently deployed in operator field trials”.

Andrei Ushatsky, Vice President, Technology and IT, MTS, said, “This launch is one of Europe’s largest Massive MIMO deployments, covering seven Russian cities, and is a major contribution by MTS in the preparation of the country’s infrastructure for the global sporting event of the year.

Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President and Head of Market Area Europe and Latin America, Ericsson, said, “Data-demanding mobile connectivity is going to play a huge part in their tournament experiences, so we are delighted to team up with MTS to ensure they enjoy a mobile experience like never before, whether they are at the game, in a fan zone, or at other selected areas.”

More than 1.5 million international fans are expected in Russia across the month-long tournament, which gets underway on 14 June and ends on 15 July.