Ukrtelecom in July plans to connect residents of 65 localities to broadband Internet as part of the implementation of the project to develop the optical network using GPON technology. The first connections under the project for the development of the optical network in 300 small localities started a month and a half earlier than planned, according to the operator’s website.
“At the first stage, works on the construction of the optical network are carried out in 16 regions: Zaporizhia, Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Khmelnytsky, Chernivtsi, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kherson, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Chernihiv, where already 40% of the network has been laid, which is more than 220 kilometers. By the end of July, it is planned to build almost 600 km of the optical network in total,” the operator said.
According to the plans of Ukrtelecom, thousands of residents of 65 localities after connecting to the service will be able to receive Internet at speeds up to 200 Mbit per second, as well as use additional teleservices, in particular, Internet telephony and interactive television.
The company said that in 26 of the 65 localities connected, there was still no Internet.
PJSC Ukrtelecom continued expanding the geography of Internet coverage in 2018 and connected almost 60 Ukrainian towns and villages to the Internet, according to the operator’s website.
“In 2018, access to the World Wide Web became available to residents of almost 60 other settlements. Of them, broadband access services based on GPON [Gigabit Passive Optical Network] technology became available in 44 settlements whose residents can use high-speed Internet services,” the operator said.
In 151 towns and urban-type settlements, Ukrtelecom subscribers who used ADSL technology were offered to connect to an optical network using FTTB technology.
Now the operator provides Internet access in almost 2,260 cities, towns and villages in Ukraine.
As was reported, Ukrtelecom in January-September 2018 posted about UAH 449 million in net profit, which was 29.62% down on the same period of 2017 (UAH 638 million).
Ukrtelecom is Ukraine’s largest fixed-line operator. It is the only founder and participant of LLC 3Mob, a 3G / UMTS mobile operator.
Public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom has designed a project to connect remote settlements to the broadband Internet access service, which could cover 8,000 villages where 6 million residents are living, during two years, Director for Mass Market Segment at Ukrtelecom Denys Zakharenko said at the presentation of the project in Kyiv on Monday. The total cost of the project is UAH 6 billion, including UAH 3.2 billion (53.3%) of government investment.
He said that all villages with schools (6,900) and villages located close to them with over 100 households will be included in the project.
Ukrtelecom said that mass connection would ensure the coverage of 40% of the total number of rural residents in Ukraine with the broadband Internet access service, which would cut the gap between cities and small towns and villages by 75%, as the share of rural areas in Ukraine where the service is not provided would decline from 56% to 16%, from 8.3 million to 2.3 million people.
According to the calculations of the operator, some 58,000 km of networks should be built to cover 8,000 villages.
The operator said that 14,000 villages are not covered by the project. A total of 2.3 million residents live there. This could be a ground for the second wave of connections.
Thanks to the implementation of the project, broadband Internet access saturation in Ukraine would grow by 4.4%, and GDP would grow by 0.6%, which in the prices of 2018 is around UAH 20 billion. Growth of the national budget’s revenue could be UAH 5.4 billion.
Zakharenko said that the buyback period for government investment could be two years thanks to the increase in payment of taxes.
Ukrtelecom Director Yuriy Kurmaz said that the project will be presented to the government and parliament.
