GSM Operators in Belarus

[Asick]

Przemolog, we had (or may be still have in some regions) the same situation with CDMA-800 band here in Russia. It was called 'the band licensed for the fixed telephony service', so CDMA-800 phones were expected to be locked to a single BTS. Were expected but not always were, though. :P Also, there was a 'rural street phone' service provided by the NMT operator (Delta Telecom), they placed some Nokia-10 (or may be 11 or 12, I'm not sure, I mean the fixed NMT cellphone and I don't remember the exact model number) and used them as public street phones. They were locked to their BTSes too, AFAIK. Anyway, this is not as crazy as locking GSM phones, I guess. NMT didn't use SIMs and so on, so it was initially more 'fixed'.

Lukashenko speaks Russian wherever he talks, AFAIK. I'm not perfectly sure, but I saw him speaking only Russian even when I was watching the state TV channel in Belarus (I've been to Belarus a few times). I've never heard him speaking Belarussian. His Russian is a bit funny (he has a sort of Belarussian accent/dialect, he pronounces some sounds specifically and his speech has some funny intonations), but it's still Russian that I easily understand. I can understand most of the Belarussian too, but it sounds to me as a very distorted and funny language, which is surely not Russian.