Additional expenses of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar on ensuring its energy independence amid the problems with external energy supply exceeded UAH 350 mln and the company has replaced more than 20 thousand batteries at base stations to extend their autonomous operation up to four to six hours.
Alexander Komarov, the President of the Company, informed at Business Wisdom Summit held this week that the batteries have been already replaced at 2 ths sites (base stations and other facilities) out of 14 ths and by May-June it will be up to 5 ths but the company goes to the Board of Directors with the proposal to expand this program by 4 ths more.
Earlier the president of the company noted that consumption of one base station is 6-7 kWh. New modern lithium-phosphate batteries allow not only to keep voltage longer but also to recharge faster.
He added that Kyivstar also installed 1,790 generators, of which 700 were provided by businesses on crowdfunding terms. Their total capacity reached 40 MW.
Komarov specified that since November the company uses on average about 10 thousand liters of fuel per day, and the total consumption has already made about 1 million liters.
According to him, to cope with the problems of outages also helps national roaming: in the peak day on November 23 Kyivstar took 1 million subscribers of other operators, while 1,3 million subscribers of Kyivstar used networks of competitors. In total, during the operation of national roaming since March 7, 2022 subscribers of other networks spoke in Kyivstar network 1.2 billion minutes.
In addition, the company also invested UAH 50 million in uninterruptible power supplies for “Home Internet” services: more than 10 thousand homes were equipped with uninterruptible power supplies, which guarantees them the availability of the Internet, even in cases of new blackouts.
Komarov specified that the total investment in the development of telcom-services in the past year amounted to 5.9 billion UAH, 659 new base stations were built, which corresponds to the level of 2021.
He reminded that during the war 18% of base stations of the company were completely destroyed, 20% were damaged and more than 1200 km of fiber-optic lines were damaged as well.
According to him, the company now has 24.8 million subscribers, of which 3.3 million are internally displaced. Komarov specified that 2.2 million subscribers went abroad, 1.4 million of them remained the company’s subscribers, including 95 % that use the service “roaming as home”, provided in 27 countries.
The president of “Kyivstar” noted that at the beginning of the war there were 10 million subscribers of the company outside their places of residence.
“The industry and Kyivstar have done very decently: the network indicators are very close to the pre-war period, the energy industry has stabilized, and the network has stabilized,” Komarov summarized.
Ukraine’s largest mobile operator “Kyivstar” in a year of war paid 10.7 billion UAH of taxes and invested in technological development of 3.5 billion UAH, the president of the company, Alexander Komarov said on Facebook.
The second largest operator “Vodafone Ukraine” reported paying 4.97 billion UAH of taxes and fees in 2022 and almost 4 billion UAH of investments in support and development of telecom infrastructure in Ukraine.
“92% of the network is working as usual today. This is an incredible result, given that 8% are in the occupied territories. At the same time we returned connection to 815 settlements, where we built more than 600 base stations (BS). More 700 new base stations of 4G standard were built, which increased the 4G coverage by 20%”, – wrote Komarov.
He added that the generating capacity of Kyivstar reached 39.2 MW thanks to increase of the number of diesel generators by 75% and installation of 18 thousand new batteries.
“As of today 88% of the network in the country is working in normal mode” – stated “Vodafone Ukraine”.
According to the company, 581 base stations were resumed and 2.9 thousand km of fiber-optic cable were repaired, thanks to which it was possible to restore the availability of services to people in 759 settlements of the country.
“Vodafone Ukraine” also reported that 723 base stations were launched in new locations, 414 additional mobile generators were purchased and 24.71 thousand batteries were replaced.
Investments by Ukraine’s largest mobile operator Kyivstar in alternative power supply exceeded UAH 350 million, the company said on Tuesday.
According to the report, the company increased by 75% the number of generators for alternative power supply of base stations, as well as installed more than 18 thousand batteries of a new type with a longer service life.
The release also says that since February 2022 Kyivstar’s specialists have renewed more than 7 thousand base stations and built 700 new base stations for 4G network operation, due to which the territory of the company’s 4G network operation has increased by 6-20% depending on the region.
The operator recalled that during the war about 18% of base stations of the company’s mobile communications were significantly damaged, but thanks to early backup of additional communication channels, the transfer of nodal base stations to the remote from the frontline cities, almost 90% of Kyivstar telecom network is now in working order.
According to the report, since the beginning of the war, Kyivstar specialists restored 600 base stations, replaced 1.2 thousand km of damaged fibre-optic cable, eliminated 140 thousand emergency situations on the infrastructure and returned mobile communications to 815 settlements.
As reported, in early January 2023 Kyivstar announced its plans to increase the number of stationary and mobile diesel generators at other sites of the network by 40% to 14 MW.
Earlier, in December 2022 Yurii Matsyk, director of the department of fixed-line Internet development of the Ministry of Ukraine, noted that only 7% of 32 thousand mobile stations are equipped with generators and 93% – with accumulators. According to him, generators with a capacity of 20-30 kW are needed for the communication node, where there is traffic switching. For the base station – 6-8 kW.
Ukraine’s largest mobile operator Kyivstar together with its partners has installed generators in 50 branded stores, in the coming months the number of standalone stores will reach 100, the operator’s press service said.
“To date, the company has already invested more than 350 million UAH to provide the network of base stations with powerful batteries, as well as stationary and mobile diesel generators. More than UAH 5.5 million were allocated to compensate our partners for purchasing generators in stores to provide our customers with constant access to services”, – the press service quotes Kyivstar head of retail sales channels Mykhailo Mykolyuk as saying.
As reported, earlier Kyivstar invested more than UAH 50 million in the purchase of uninterruptible power supplies to support “Home Internet” service to 10 thousand homes and 90 thousand subscribers to stay connected even during power outages.
The shareholder of Kyivstar is an international group VEON, which is headquartered in the Netherlands. The group’s shares are traded on the NASDAQ (New York) and Euronext (Amsterdam) stock exchanges.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, has brought the total capacity of generators in its network to 37 MW, of which 20 MW are large stationary generators to back up key technology sites, company president Alexander Komarov said.
“These grid facilities are fully backed up and have enough fuel to cope with the consequences of the blackout. Only yesterday there were 14 outages of technological sites in 8 regions of Ukraine”, – he noted.
Komarov added that in January-February the company plans to increase the number of stationary and mobile diesel generators at other network sites by another 40% to 14 MW.
“As of today, we have 700 stationary and mobile diesel generators with a total capacity of about 10 MW. In January-February, we will increase their number and, accordingly, the capacity by another 40% – up to 14 MW,” – wrote the president of Kyivstar.
According to him, despite of all efforts, the available capacities are not enough. Komarov appealed for cooperation to representatives of businesses that have generators with a capacity of 6 kW and can connect telecom equipment within the campaign “Business unites for victory” to make it work during periods of power outage.
“To date, we have about 400 connections to third-party generators whose (combined) capacity is about 3 MW. And also in the processing of more than 600 more applications, we are analyzing the technical possibility of connection,” – said the president of Kyivstar.
In December the director of the Department of Fixed Internet Development of the Ministry of Communications Yuri Matsik reported that only 7% of 32 thousand mobile stations are equipped with generators and 93% with accumulators. According to him, generators with a capacity of 20-30 kW are needed for the communication center, where there is traffic switching. For the base station it is 6-8 kW.
Subscribers of Kyivstar mobile operator provided equipment to two hospitals in Dnipro and one in Lviv thanks to regular SMS donations as part of the Children’s Hope project, the company’s press service said Thursday.
“For almost four years of existence of “Children’s Hope” thanks to small SMS donations our subscribers managed to collect more than 12.5 million UAH, and 51 departments of Ukrainian hospitals have already received help. On behalf of Kyivstar I would like to thank all our subscribers who care and continue to systematically support this initiative during this full-scale war”, said Anna Zakharash, Corporate Communications Director of Kyivstar.
According to the report, the pediatric department of the Children’s Hospital № 6 in Dnipro purchased ECG recording device “AMEDTEC ECGpro CardioPart 12 Blue”-mr-wt with consumables and updated ECG Holter analysis software “ECGpro Holter”.
DOR Regional Family Health Center received Rescue LIFE 9 portable defibrillator with synchronization function and pediatric electrodes, which will allow resuscitation of children in case of deterioration of their condition during surgeries.
In addition, the Lviv Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital “Okhmatdet” received new equipment within the framework of the “Cardiology” project. The raised funds were used to buy sectoral 6S-RS and 3ScRS transducers for the existing ultrasound device.
This equipment will enable cardiac diagnostics of children’s diseases at a higher quality level.
As reported, since the beginning of full-scale war Kyivstar transferred almost 104 million UAH for humanitarian aid to the AFU, hospitals, the elderly and war victims. In particular, funds were transferred to the “Come back alive”, “Your support”, “Let`s help”, ICF “Caritas Ukraine” and ICF “Ukrainian Charity Exchange”.
