lifecell announced the expansion of the list of countries where 5G is available to its subscribers. The list now includes 47 countries.
For lifecell subscribers from May 2023 5G Internet in roaming is available — at the start, the service was offered in Bulgaria, Austria, Finland and the Dominican Republic, and now the operator provides this opportunity for lifecell roamers in 47 countries (if your smartphone supports this standard).
lifecell also shared some statistics on the use of 5G services in roaming:
The list of the most popular smartphones on which lifecell subscribers use 5G deserves special attention — iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 12, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 14. The most popular 5G model among Android users is Galaxy A53.
lifecell explicitly acknowledges that these rather high rates of mobile Internet consumption in roaming are influenced, among other things, by the ability to use gigabytes under the promotion «Gigabytes without borders» within the «home» tariff without additional surcharges.
There are a few more important points to mention. As for lifecell, since December 2023, the third largest Ukrainian mobile operator by subscribers has been in the final stages of being sold to NJJ Capital by French billionaire Xavier Niel — the transaction is expected to close by September 2024 (the delay is due to the arrest of a share of corporate rights allegedly owned by sanctioned Russian businessmen Friedman and Kosogov), and then it is likely to merge with «Datagroup» and Volia.
In February, the Rada supported the draft law on a single roaming area with the EU, and Ukraine has become one step closer to the EU’s free roaming zone on a permanent basis. When the changes are finally approved, Ukrainians will be able to make calls and use the mobile Internet at home tariffs without changing their SIM cards or paying additional fees when traveling in Europe. Currently, free roaming for Ukrainians in the European Union is available thanks to a separate agreement between Ukrainian and European operators.
As for the timing of the full 5G launch in Ukraine, there is no timetable (not even an estimate). In short: don’t expect the fifth generation in the next few years, despite the announcement by the head of the Ministry of Digital Transformation in September 2023 pilot launch of 5G in Ukraine in 2024 and recent tests of 5G base stations by Kyivstar specialists, which lifecell CEO Ismet Yazıcı called a PR ploy in a recent interview with Forbes.
Ukrainian operators, together with Ericsson and other major telecom equipment manufacturers, had been deploying 5G demo segments and testing equipment long before the war (1, 2, 3). We can also mention postponement of the tender for 5G due to lack of state funding and other obstacles even before the full-scale Russian invasion.
Given the extent of the destruction of Ukraine’s telecom infrastructure as a result of Russian aggression, the lack of 4G coverage and uninterrupted communication in a large part of Ukraine, the deployment of full-fledged 5G networks in Ukraine will not be a priority after the victory and remains a distant prospect. The transition to 5G means huge investments, the need to update legislation, harmonize it with EU standards, in particular with regard to equipment safety, release of radio frequency resources for 5G communications, and certification of equipment for infrastructure development. There is not a single 5G equipment manufacturer in Ukraine, and purchasing it for foreign currency from Chinese suppliers does not seem rational given the current realities. So maybe it’s better to miss out on that 5G and immediately implement 6G, as Dmytro Shymkiv once proposed to do with 4G.