11:40 05.08.2022

National roaming is mechanism for emergencies, no sense to keep it in relatively safe zones – Kyivstar president

2 min read
National roaming is mechanism for emergencies, no sense to keep it in relatively safe zones – Kyivstar president

President of Kyivstar mobile operator Alexander Komarov sees no point in continuing to provide the National Roaming service in relatively safe areas.

"The volume of use [of the National Roaming service] fell by about half. The use was very active in the occupied territories, where the network stability was very different. After the occupied territories were disconnected... Today we have distribution, close to the market one, on average we receive a little more subscribers," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He noted that during the week about 500,000-600,000 subscribers use national roaming, of which Kyivstar receives an average of about 250,000-300,000.

"After the war, in the event of an emergency – yes, of course, this is an excellent mechanism that has proven itself well. Long-term, as a commercial basis for the development of the industry – no. We have too different competitive advantages. Someone like us, about quality, coverage, investment... Someone believes in the price, someone more in the youth audience... Everyone has their own positioning and national roaming actually removes the elements of competition. Therefore, in normal times, this is an unjustified decision," Komarov said.

According to him, today there is no point in continuing to use national roaming in relatively safe areas.

Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian telecommunications operator. It provides communication and data transmission services based on a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 3G. By the end of 2020, its services were used by about 25.9 million mobile subscribers and about 1.1 million fixed Internet customers.

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