Beeline, Kcell and Tele2 explain poor internet at Dimash's concert in Katon-Karagay

Telecom operators and the Telecommunications Committee of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry have commented on social media users' complaints about the lack of internet during the ALTAI FEST festival in Katon-Karagay. The main reason for the disruptions, according to them, was a sharp increase in the number of visitors compared to the forecast. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

According to Beeline, the company had strengthened the network in advance by deploying a mobile base station with LTE support, based on a forecast of 12,000-15,000 visitors. However, the festival actually attracted about 50,000 people.

"There were no network failures. However, under peak load, the mobile base station operated almost at its maximum capacity, so some subscribers may have experienced a decrease in mobile internet speed," the company reported.

Beeline explained that any base station has limitations on the number of connections and traffic volume, and when tens of thousands of people gather simultaneously, speed may drop even with working equipment. The company promised to analyze the load and take the experience into account when preparing for future mass events.

Kcell reported that an additional mobile base station was deployed at the site with two 4G sectors (including mMIMO technology), a 5G network in the 3700 MHz and 700 MHz bands, an additional 4G sector, and two 2G sectors for voice communication.

According to the operator, mobile internet speed at the site reached about 800 Mbps for download and over 150 Mbps for upload, and the company confirmed this with speedtest results.

Tele2 deployed a mobile base station supporting 2G/4G/5G and expanded the transport channel capacity to 2 Gbps. During peak periods, up to 9,600 subscribers were simultaneously connected to the network. According to the operator, data transfer speeds exceeded 30 Mbps on the 4G network and over 200 Mbps on the 5G network.

As the operators clarified, the Digitalization Department of the East Kazakhstan Region additionally deployed 20 Starlink terminals for festival guests, which also experienced high load due to the large number of users.

Recall that earlier, social media user Ramazan Shakirzhanov complained about the almost complete lack of internet during the festival, stating that the operators "disgraced the region in front of foreign tourists," and that the mobile signal boosters placed at the site, in his opinion, had no effect.