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”.
The Binance cryptocurrency exchange (based in China) has announced the start of cooperation with the Kyivstar mobile operator.
As noted in the joint release of the companies, distributed on Thursday, within the framework of this partnership, Kyivstar users interested in innovation, blockchain, investments and financial products will have access to a wide range of cryptocurrency opportunities.
All customers of the mobile operator in the My Kyivstar application will be able to receive a special bonus promo code, which can then be used when registering on Binance.
In the future, Binance and Kyivstar plan to work together to improve crypto literacy in Ukraine, which will help lower the barriers to start using digital assets in everyday life.
As reported, in September, the WOG filling station network became a partner of the Binance blockchain ecosystem and launched the possibility of paying for fuel with cryptocurrency using Binance Pay.
In May, the Foxtrot network became a partner of the Binance blockchain system and launched the ability to pay for goods in the online store and retail outlets of the network using Binance Pay.
Earlier, Binance planned to launch a payment card in Ukraine with a balance in cryptocurrencies and automatic conversion upon payment.
Binance is the world’s leading blockchain system and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a range of financial products including the largest digital asset trading exchange by volume.
The largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar has invested UAH 200 million in upgrading the Internet network to a speed of 1 Gbit / s and now it is available with such parameters in seven cities of Ukraine – Kyiv, Dnipro, Lvov, Starokonstantinov, Vladimir, Truskavets and Slavuta.
“In total, this year it is planned to cover 10 more cities with a gigabit network,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
According to him, over the past six months, Kyivstar has also expanded the Home Internet service to 355 new houses with more than 44,000 apartments.
This service has also become available in Dubno (Rivne region), and by the end of the year it will appear in five more cities, the release notes.
The company noted that the network damaged as a result of hostilities has already been completely repaired in the de-occupied territories in Chernihiv, Nizhyn, Irpen, Akhtyrka and in the cities that are under shelling – Krivoy Rog, Zelenodolsk. In addition, 99% of the network in Nikolaev, 94% in Kharkov and 81% in Nikopol are maintained in working order.
In addition, as part of social initiatives, the Internet was connected in 1279 bomb shelters and shelters, as well as in 442 modular houses for internally displaced persons.
The company plans to connect 6 more modular towns by the end of the year, as well as connect WI-FI in dozens of shelters in schools.
Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian telecommunications operator. Provides communication and data transmission services based on a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 3G. As of the middle of this year, its services were used by about 24.8 million mobile subscribers and more than 1 million fixed Internet customers.
Kyivstar’s shareholder is the international group VEON (formerly VimpelCom Ltd.). The group’s shares are listed on the NASDAQ (New York) stock exchange.
