This Allows Subscribers to Enjoy Internet at Rate of up to 700 Mbps
April 12, Kyivstar obtained all licenses for launching mobile 4G Internet in Ukraine. The telecom operator with its subscriber base of 26.5 million people won the tender for the largest frequency spectrum to develop 4G: in the band of 2600 MHz – 30 MHz, and in the band of 1800 MHz – 70 MHz. Kyivstar paid for the entire spectrum and conversion an amount of near UAH 4 billion, without taking into account equipment costs.
Spectrum investments are expressly important, since the network bandwidth, same as the quality of communications, depends on the number of frequencies. To effectively use that spectrum and provide the largest number of subscribers with access to modern technologies, Kyivstar installed the maximum number of base stations in the band of 2600 MHz (more details on permits for base stations one may find on the website of the Ukrainian State Center of Radio Frequencies or in the Base Stations app). 512 base stations are located at the sites of maximum network workload in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Uzhgorod, Khmelnytskiy, as well as urban resorts and border crossing points like Zatoka, Carolino-Bugaz, Kyrylivka, Yasynia, Polianytsia, Chop, Rava-Ruska, Starovoitovo, Krakovets, Ustilug, Shegini.
“We have invested almost UAH 4 billion in launching 4G, without taking into account network development costs, which is more than competitors, perfectly realizing that every Kyivstar subscriber must have access to new technologies. We are looking forward to launching fourth-generation mobile Internet in the band of 1800 MHz in order to provide a full 4G coverage”, as stated by Peter Chernyshov, President of Kyivstar, VEON’s Head of Eurasia.
4G in the band of 1800 MHz will be launched no sooner than July. First, this is a license term, and second, all three operators must conduct a refarming, i.e. exchange of frequencies. Three market players carry out their engineering operations simultaneously at nighttime, so that subscribers would not feel even a slight degradation of communications. Due to refarming, all three Ukrainian mobile operators will obtain continuous radio frequency bandwidths, which will allow them to provide their subscribers with better and faster mobile 4G Internet.
4G is provided to all Kyivstar subscribers without any extra fee, according to their actual billing plans, and whose USIM cards and smartphones support the above technology. Kyivstar provides high-speed mobile Internet at a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of up to 300 Mbps in the band of 2600 MHz, and after launching 4G in the bands of 2600+1800 MHz it will be up to 700 Mbps.
