“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.
Video materials of the Ukrainian National School online have become available on the Kyivstar TV online television platform, which can be found in the new Education section, the Kyivstar press service reported on Monday.
“Everyone has free access to lectures as part of the schedule and can thus study remotely. The section’s library is constantly updated with new useful content for the youngest users: language courses, IT lessons and much more,” the company said.
In addition, as reported, from Monday, March 14, the Learning without Borders educational project starts on Ukrainian television, implemented at the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, TV channels PLUSPLUS, Pixel and regional channels of the Public Broadcaster, as well as online TV platforms, including Kyivstar TV.
So, from Monday to Friday (March 14 through March 18), a series of lessons for students in grades 5-11 in the following disciplines Ukrainian language, Mathematics and History of Ukraine starts daily at 10:00. TV channels will selectively broadcast content for different classes: Pixel TV channel – lessons for grade 5 (10:00) and grade 6 (11:00); PLUSPLUS TV channel – lessons for grade 7 (10:00), grade 8 (11:00), grade 11 (12:00); regional channels of the Public – lessons for grade 9 (10:00) and grade 10 (11:00).
On Kyivstar TV it will be possible to watch lessons both online, by selecting the appropriate channel, and in recorded lessons absolutely free. The content is also available to all who are abroad. One only needs to log in to the platform for free.
“We make sure that children have the opportunity to learn in these difficult times and that after our victory in the war, adaptation and return to the educational process is as easy as possible. Therefore, we have opened access to all educational content on the platform, we are working on constant updating and we do everything to ensure that education in our country is really carried out without borders,” Kyivstar TV said.
As reported, since the beginning of the war, Kyivstar TV has provided free access to news channels and all children’s content to authorized users. All Russian content has been removed from the platform.
The Ukrainian mobile operators Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and Lifecell have realized the opportunity to use mobile Internet within national roaming.
According to the joint message of the companies, distributed on Sunday, now subscribers can use not only voice calls and SMS, but also mobile 2G/3G Internet at speeds up to 512 kbps to exchange messages in instant messengers or search for information on the Internet.
National roaming allows you to connect to the network of another if the connection of one operator is lost.
“At the moment, the availability of mobile Internet is no less important than calls, because it allows you to keep in touch with loved ones online and check the latest news. At the same time, the tariffing of services in national roaming is maintained in accordance with the tariff plan of the operator whose services the subscriber uses,” the report says.
Roaming works automatically for Lifecell subscribers. If there is no connection to the network of another operator, manual settings must be made.
Kyivstar and Vodafone Ukraine subscribers can use this option by making manual settings on their smartphone and disabling auto network selection.
As noted in the message, if registration failed, you need to try again or select another network.
It is also important for subscribers to try daily to return (connect) to the network of their operator manually or by turning on automatic network selection.
