The Kyivstar mobile operator since February 2022 has upgraded 3,000 base stations in small towns and villages with a population of up to 2,000 people by connecting LTE-900 technology to them, the company’s press service reported on Monday.
“Thanks to this, the network capacity has been increased and the quality of 4G has been improved in 3,500 settlements in 19 regions of Ukraine. Among them are Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy and other regions of Ukraine where no active hostilities are taking place,” the statement said.
The operator notes that also in 2022, some 140 new base stations were built. And to improve the quality of communication in regions of intensive data traffic, the development of frequencies in the 2300 MHz range, received from the state for the period of wartime in the country, began.
According to Kyivstar, since the beginning of the war, almost 5 million of the company’s subscribers have moved from large cities to small towns within their region, and another 4 million have moved from other regions to the western regions of Ukraine. In this regard, the operator increases the network capacity and improves the quality of radio coverage in places where Internet traffic is growing.
“Since the outbreak of hostilities, the telecom operator’s specialists have eliminated thousands of emergencies that arose as a result of damage to the telecommunications infrastructure, replaced almost 30,000 meters of destroyed fiber-optic lines, carried out 3,500 repairs on cell towers. More than 90% of the telecom infrastructure is operating normally, providing communications and high-speed Internet for the needs of subscribers, the public sector and private companies,” the company said.
In 2022, the Kyivstar mobile operator built 108 new base stations to improve the quality of communication.
As the company’s press service reported on Friday, in the first quarter of 2022, Kyivstar invested UAH 659 million in construction and development of a mobile communication network in Ukraine, thanks to which the company’s telecom network works stably.
In January-May 2022, the operator built 108 new mobile base stations. In particular, 53 base stations were built in cities in the west of Ukraine, 27 base stations – in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Cherkasy regions. In the east of Ukraine, 20 base stations were built, most of them in Kharkiv region. Eight new base stations were installed in the south of Ukraine.
“Thanks to the network expansion, the company can better provide communications in those regions where there is an increase in traffic. For example, almost 5 million subscribers who were in large cities before the war moved to rural areas within their regions. And about 4 million subscribers moved to other regions, mainly to the west of Ukraine,” the report says.
In addition, as noted, during the hostilities, Kyivstar specialists eliminated tens of thousands of emergency situations that arose as a result of damage to the telecommunications infrastructure.
Currently, 95% of the company’s telecom infrastructure is operating normally, providing mobile communications and high-speed Internet for 26 million subscribers.
“We can confirm that there is a trend for Ukrainians to return home. We really see all the migration, we see all countries. Today, according to the Kyivstar database, Poland has accepted 35% of Ukrainians who have left the country, Germany – 15%, the Czech Republic – 7%, Italy – 5%, Moldova and Romania – 2% each, that is, these are the list of the top countries where Kyivstar customers went,” Kyivstar President Oleksandr Komarov said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He also said that according to the operator, there are about 8.7 million internally displaced persons in Ukraine.
“These are two types of migration: from big cities to towns and from east to west. Approximately 4 million people have moved to other areas of the country, others have moved from cities to villages within their regions. The internal migration of such a large number of people is a technical challenge for mobile networks,” Komarov said.
According to him, today the average speed of mobile Internet in the Kyivstar network has fallen from about 38 Mbps to 28 Mbps due to the fact that almost 5 million subscribers have left the cities for the countryside.
“From territories where mobile data transmission is available in the 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands, they went to where LTE-900 technology works, which has a lower capacity. And this is the reason that we are now rethinking our plan to build new base stations for this year. For example, in areas with strong growth in subscribers, we plan to move from LTE-900 to LTE-1800, it is possible to increase it up to 2600 MHz somewhere,” the president of the operator said.
He also said that the operator focuses on the subscriber migration data in terms of network development. In particular, the changes affected plans to build a gigabit network.
If earlier the operator focused in this part mainly on large cities, then during the war, the construction of a gigabit network in Lviv was completed in the first place, and it is also planned to expand other sections of the network in Western Ukraine.
As reported, specialists of the Kyivstar mobile network operator in the two months of the war eliminated more than 48,000 accidents in the physical and digital infrastructure of the network, and also replaced almost 25,000 meters of optical fiber.
Subscribers of the Kyivstar mobile operator can now communicate at their “home” tariffs in 16 EU countries.
According to the press service of the company on Wednesday, up to nine EU countries (Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and the Czech Republic), where for more than a month subscribers can use mobile communications and the Internet at tariffs, as in Ukraine , Kyivstar adds France, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia.
In addition, as noted, the operator increases the list of tariff plans for which new conditions apply. In contract and business clients, as before, they work in almost all tariffs, and for prepaid subscribers they will be available not only in the tariffs “Your” and “All together”, but also in part of the offers for 2019-2020.
“In collaboration with foreign partners, we were able to significantly change the conditions of international roaming. Thanks to this, more than 80% of our customers can use calls and the Internet abroad by simply paying their own tariff. This is not only cheaper and more convenient for them, but is very important for Ukrainian telecom. The more customers abroad pay their tariff and use Kyivstar services, the more we will be able to invest in the restoration of infrastructure in Ukraine and in supporting customers in areas with hostilities,” Oleksandr, head of the additional services and operator relations department at Kyivstar, is quoted. Galushko.
By now, the mobile operator Kyivstar has provided 1,000 bomb shelters all over Ukraine with free home internet.
According to the press service of the company on Thursday, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Lviv, Dnipro, Obukhov, Khmelnitsky, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, Chernivtsi, Zaporozhye, Lutsk, Nikolaev and others receive this service from the operator.
Every day, the company connects an average of 15 new locations and accepts applications for connection.
According to the operator, in order to apply for connecting a bomb shelter to the Internet, you need to send a request to the email address wifi@kyivstar.net, indicating your contacts and connection address. Within a few days, a technician will provide feedback on connectivity and the required time to complete the request.
Kyivstar notes that today, since the beginning of the war, the company has already provided subscribers with free services worth more than UAH 400 million. In addition, she transferred more than UAH 30 million in charitable assistance for the humanitarian needs of the military, hospitals, the elderly and those affected by the war.
The Kyivstar mobile network operator, on the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, cancels mobile Internet billing in popular video call applications for prepaid subscribers.
The press service of the operator said on Monday that in particular, megabytes will not be taken into account from the accounts of prepaid subscribers for using the following applications: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Google Classroom.
“We will definitely win the war, but now we need to gradually return to a full life. Adaptation and support for children is perhaps the most important and responsible task not only for parents and teachers, but for the whole society. Therefore, Kyivstar immediately responded to the proposal of the Ministry of Education and Science make applications that will broadcast online lessons for free, so that learning, mastering a new specialty and working online are even more accessible to our customers,” Kyivstar’s B2C Director Tetiana Lukyniuk said.
The company also added that the Lets Learn without Borders! service is valid in most Kyivstar tariffs and allows using popular educational applications without additional billing. Among them are Wikipedia, Coursera, Prometheus, E-School, etc.
“Despite hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, educational institutions continue to provide training in regions where the security situation allows. In addition, a national Ukrainian timetable has been created, the National E-School is functioning, and Ukrainian TV channels broadcast lessons for grades 5-11 as part of the Lets Learn without Borders! service. To provide even better conditions for learning and working online, the Ministry of Education and Science initiated the free use of mobile applications through which access to the educational process is provided. I am grateful to all organizations and institutions for cooperation,” Minister of Education and Science Serhiy Shkarlet said.
According to the report, the Ministry of Education has applied to other mobile network operators with a similar request and is waiting for a positive decision.
