Eutelsat will provide satellite Internet to users across UkraineEutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) will provide satellite Internet to users across Ukraine. Eutelsat announced the signature of a distribution contract for the Tooway™ broadband service between its Skylogic subsidiary and Eurosat-Ukraine. Eurosat-Ukraine is an affiliate of Altegrosky, a leading provider of satellite-delivered telecoms services in Russia and CIS countries. The new contract between Skylogic and Eurosat-Ukraine covers distribution to consumers in the Ukraine of the Tooway™ new generation satellite broadband service, which is delivered via Eutelsat’s KA-SAT satellite.
With Tooway™ packages enabling users to benefit from download speeds of up to 10 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 4 Mbps, Eurosat-Ukraine can now offer fast and immediate Internet access to users across the Ukraine. Leveraging Altegrosky’s extensive experience of providing traditional VSAT solutions in Russia, with 6 500 terminals already deployed, the company plans to focus on rural areas and areas with poor ADSL and mobile broadband coverage. Over 10 million households in the Ukraine’s rural and suburban areas are not served by any Internet access, representing a significant addressable market.
Celebrating the partnership with Eutelsat, Sergey Pekhterev General Manager of Altegrosky, said: “Our new partnership with Skylogic and Eutelsat is a powerful new platform for expanding our range of services and increasing the efficiency of the solutions we offer. Our objective with our joint effort is to tackle the problem of white spots by offering the speed and performance of Tooway™ to households across the Ukraine.”
Arduino Patacchini, CEO of Skylogic responded: “The selection of Tooway™ by Altegrosky, an expert in satellite-based telecom networks, highlights the confidence of our partners in the new KA-SAT broadband infrastructure. We look forward to developing Tooway™ service growth in Eastern Europe with Altegrosky and Eurosat-Ukraine, and believe that the performance and affordability of our new-generation satellite broadband services will contribute to rapidly reducing digital exclusion for individuals deprived of high-speed Internet access.”
The new generation Tooway™ service is provided by Eutelsat’s KA-SAT satellite which went into full commercial service in May. With its total throughput of more than 70 Gbps, KA-SAT is a wireless broadband infrastructure designed to deliver fast, effective and affordable IP applications to users across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.
(c) Paudis
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Kyivstar Introduces Home Internet Service In Five CitiesThe Kyivstar telecommunication company introduced the Home Internet service in five cities in February and March 2011.
In particular, the service under the FTTB technology was introduced in Dniprodzerzhynsk (Dnipropetrovsk region), Lozova (Kharkiv region), Makiivka (Donetsk region), Netishyn (Khmelnytskyi region), and Chervonohrad (Lviv region).
At present, Kyivstar provides the service of access to the Internet in 43 cities, un.ua says.
In October 2010, following the merger of Kyivstar and the Beeline communication operator (the Ukrainian Radiosystems and Golden Telecom companies) the resulting company began providing services under the single brand Home Internet in all cities, including cities where Beeline had introduced the Beeline Internet at Home service.
The number of subscribers of Kyivstar and Beeline decreased by 2% to 24.44 million in November 2010.
The Kyivstar telecommunications operator and the Beeline mobile communications operator (the Ukrainian RadioSystems and Golden Telecom companies) ended the period of October-December 2010 with a net profit of UAH 514.1 million.
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Vega Introduces Service Of Phone Calls Through Internet For Corporate ClientsThe Vega telecommunications group has introduced a service "Vega Network" for phone calls through the Internet from April 4.
The service will allow corporate subscribers to make phone calls from a city number of Vega to all directions and will provide free calls between employees of different offices within one city with the use of inside numbers (201,202, 203, and others).
The operator offers two tariff plans within this service: Vega Network 3 and Vega Network 4 which include 3 and 4 IP-lines respectively with inside numbers and a city number of Vega. The number of IP-lines can be expanded to eight.
The use fee within the tariff plans is UAH 50 and UAH 60 a month respectively.
The service is available for corporate clients in Kyiv, Boryspil, Vyshneve (both in Kyiv region), Donetsk, Mariupol, Makiivka (both in Donetsk region), Kharkiv, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Novomoskovsk, Kryvyi Rih (both in Dnipropetrovsk region), Zaporizhia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria (the cities are in Crimea), Lviv, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Vega telecommunications group was created as a result of the re-branding of the Farlep Optima group of companies (which consisted of the Farlep, Optima Telecom, Ukomlain, TsSS, IP Telecom, Matrix, Vilcom, and several other companies).
The Vega Group is part of the Donetsk-based System Capital Management company.
The Farlep-Invest open joint-stock company manages the Vega Group.
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Viettel to invest USD 600m in UkraineVietnamese telecommunications company Viettel is expected to invest about U.S. $600 million in broadband development in Ukraine, Vladislav Kaskiv, director of Ukraine’s State Agency for Investments and Investment Project Management, told reporters on March 26.
The agency signed a memorandum with Viettel, under which the operator is expected to build a broadband network in Ukraine, Kaskiv said, adding that the project is expected to be implemented within five years.
Under the project, the agency plans to ensure the availability of computers at schools in Ukrainian rural areas and the availability of netbooks for all Ukrainian school students, Kaskiv said.
Viettel is Vietnam’s largest telecommunications operator with a total of more than 50 million subscribers.
(c) Prime-TASS
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Ukrtelecom Introduces Four Tariff Plans “Business Internet” For Corporate Subscribers To Mobile InternetUkrtelecom, the largest telecommunication company in Ukraine, has introduced four tariff plans "Business Internet" for corporate subscribers to mobile Internet from March 15.
In the "Business Internet 1" tariff plan the company provides corporate subscribers with 1,024 Mb of Internet traffic within the network of Ukrtelecom and 40 Mb of traffic in the national roaming for UAH 40 a month.
In the "Business Internet 3" tariff plan the company provides corporate subscribers with 3,072 Mb of Internet traffic within the network of Ukrtelecom and 70 Mb of traffic in the national roaming for UAH 70 a month.
In the "Business Internet 10" tariff plan the company provides corporate subscribers with 10,240 Mb of Internet traffic within the network of Ukrtelecom and 5,120 Mb of traffic in the national roaming for UAH 120 a month.
Also, the company offers the Business Internet Premium tariff plan which includes unlimited Internet traffic within the network of Ukrtelecom and 10,240 Mb of traffic in the national roaming for UAH 480 a month.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukrtelecom ended 2010 with losses of UAH 258.757 million, having reduced net revenues by UAH 115.452 million or 1.68% to UAH 6,749.304 million compared with 2009.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine on March 11 sold 92.79% in Ukrtelecom to the ESU Company (Kyiv), a subsidiary of the Austrian Investment-Financial Consortium EPIC, for UAH 10.575 billion.
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Experts: Investment Priority Of Ukrtelecom’s New Owner Is In Broadband InternetExperts believe that the investment priority of the new owner of the Ukrtelecom telecommunications company is broadband Internet services.
"I think that (investments will be directed) primarily toward development of the Internet. This is the segment that is developing most dynamically. In addition, computer communication requires less investment than mobile communications," said Viacheslav Ivanyshyn, an analyst with the TASK investment group.
At the same time, Ivanyshyn believes that there will be no fundamental change in Ukrtelecom following its acquisition and that the company will remain unprofitable.
According to Ivanyshyn, the biggest problem of Ukrtelecom is that it has too many employees, but he does not expect a significant reduction in the number of its employees.
Yehor Samusenko, an analyst with the Concorde Capital investment company, believes that one of the first steps of the new owner of Ukrtelecom will be a 30-40% staff reduction and estimates the payouts related to the staff reduction at approximately UAH 900 million.
Samusenko also shares the view that the main focus of investments will be Internet access services.
Regarding Ukrtelecom's UMTS (3G) mobile communications network, Samusenko said that the following development scenario was possible: the participants on the market of mobile communications services could agree on joint development of this network, regardless of whether they obtain 3G licenses this year.
Volodymyr Klymenko, the director of the Sokrat investment and banking group, also believes that the investments of the new owner of Ukrtelecom will focus on development of broadband internet and third-generation mobile communications services.
"In our opinion, investments could primarily be made in development of promising area of business, in particular 3G and Internet services," Klymenko said.
According to Klymenko, the new owner will focus on increasing the profitability of Ukrtelecom and restructuring the company.
According to him, the restructuring will involve, in particular, changing and reducing the company's management structure, as well as separation of its non-core assets with a possible subsequent sale.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the State Property Fund and the ESU company (Kyiv) signed an agreement on sale of 92.79% of the shares in the Ukrtelecom telecommunications company for UAH 10.575 billion on March 11.
ESU is a subsidiary of the EPIC investment and financial consortium (Austria).
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Kyivstar Introduces Four Unlimited Tariffs For Users Of Home Internet ServiceOn March 1, the Kyivstar telecommunication operator introduced four unlimited tariff plans for subscribers of the Home Internet service.
The tariff plan called Start+ button envisions Internet access rate of up to 2 mbps and monthly subscriber fee of UAH 55.
The tariff plan called Drive+ button envisions Internet access rate of up to 10 mbps and monthly subscriber fee of UAH 70.
The tariff plan called Turbo+ button envisions Internet access rate of up to 30 mbps and monthly subscriber fee of UAH 90.
Besides, the tariff plan called Mega+ button envisions Internet access rate of up to 80 mbps and monthly subscriber fee of UAH 140.
The tariff plans are to be valid for unlimited period of time.
Current subscribers would manage to change their tariffs with the help of self-service system My Kyivstar from May 1.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the company renders Internet services on the basis of FTTB technology in 38 Ukrainian cities.
In Q3, the number of subscribers of broadband Internet of Kyivstar and Beeline was 226,200.
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Beeline To Terminate Rendering Beeline Internet At Home Service From May 10From May 10, the Beeline communication operator (Ukrainian Radio Systems and Golden Telecom companies) decided to terminate provision of Beeline Internet At Home service, the operator said.
The operator intends to terminate access to Internet services on February 15.
At the same time, the Kyivstar operator will continue provision of services to subscribers that will agree with the replacement of operator on the basis of agreement with the Ukrainian Radio Systems.
At the same time, the agreement of a subscriber will be further use of the service after March 1, 2011 for the clients in Khmelnytskyi, Kamianets-Podilskyi (Khmelnytskyi region), Ternopil, Chernihiv, Sevastopol and Chernivtsi, and after April 1, 2011 for all other subscribers.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the unified operator is currently rendering service of Internet access on basis of FTTB technology in 38 Ukrainian cities.
From November, Beeline launched provision of fixed Internet access under Kyivstar brand for new subscribers.
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Ukrainian Internet Association Lowers Tariffs For Use Of UA-IX During First Month To UAH 11,300The Ukrainian Internet Association lowered tariffs for use of traffic exchange (UA-IX) in the first month by 8.15-36.57% or UAH 1,000-6,500 to UAH 11,275 from February 14, the press service of the association told the Ukrainian News.
The decision was taken by the board of the association on January 27.
In particular, the cost of the payment in the first month will not depend on the interface rate.
At the same time, monthly fee for use of UA-IX services will not change and will be UAH 1,275 per month.
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Datagroup Increases External Network Capacity Per Traffic Exchange Point In Germany 1.5 Times To 30 GbpsKyiv-based Datagroup telecommunication company has increased external network capacity per traffic exchange point in Germany 1.5 times to 30 Gbps.
The company said that the action would allow Datagroup to provide direct exchange with hundreds of operators-participants of DE-CIX to optimize routes of data transfer.
At the same time, DE-CIX services 350 clients from over 40 countries.
DE-CIX is abbreviation for German Commercial Internet Exchange and is located in Frankfurt.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Datagroup was created through the merger of several telecommunication companies in the city of Kyiv and provinces.
Several individuals (including its founder Oleksandr Kardakov) manage the company.
Horizon Capital, a private equity firm, in August acquired a minority stake in Datagroup for USD 40 million. Most of the money was channelled to development of broadband internet access.
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