Ukraine’s market leader Kyivstar will begin rolling out LTE-900 upgrades from April, after being issued a licence for the technology earlier this month.
The operator said that it would begin overhauling base stations for LTE 900MHz from 5th April, with a particular focus on rural regions and highways. It cautioned that subscribers might experience inferior quality of service while the upgrades are underway.
Ukraine’s government has set the target of delivering high speed internet connectivity to 95% of settlements and transport infrastructure nationwide by 2024.
Lower-band LTE will be instrumental in achieving this, prompting the government to issue licences to Kyivstar, Lifecell and Vodafone Ukraine allowing them to use 900MHz frequencies for LTE. Previously, the band was used exclusively for GSM services.
The operators will be able to offer commercial LTE-900 services from 1st July 2020. Kyivstar’s 1800MHz/2600MHz 4G network currently covers 77% of Ukraine’s population, with the operator announcing that it has extended coverage to a further 504 towns.
