Супутник Starlink / Depositphotos
«Kyivstar» plans to launch new Starlink services this year. Their range and capabilities will be expanded over time.
Oleksandr Komarov, CEO of «Kyivstar», told the agency about the company’s plans to Reuters in Rome. According to him, messaging will be launched by the end of 2025, and mobile satellite broadband will be launched in mid-2026.
Field tests of the new communication began in late 2024 as part of an agreement with SpaceX. For its part, Elon Musk’s space company will launch the possibility of direct communication with mobile phones in the country.
«The first stage is messaging via OTT technologies (over-the-top messaging), i.e. messaging via WhatsApp, Signal and other systems. It will be introduced at the end of this year. Probably in early 2026, or in the second quarter of 2026, we will be able to offer mobile satellite broadband data and voice communications,» the company’s CEO said.
The company’s CEO spoke about the resilience of Ukraine’s telecommunications infrastructure during the war and almost constant air attacks. He noted the great progress compared to the outages caused by shelling three years ago.
«I think we are much more resilient than we were in 2022. We can now provide our landline and mobile services for up to 10 hours during power outages, even nationwide».
Komarov also spoke about «the first-ever direct placement of a [Ukrainian] company on a US stock exchange». «Kyivstar», owned by the VEON telecommunications group, is working on listing its shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange in the United States. This project is «progressing» and is expected to be launched in the third quarter of this year.
As a reminder, in 2022 Starlink and the American operator T-Mobile have agreed on satellite communications via 5G phones. This year Apple has introduced support for Starlink in iOS 18.3, and the operator Verizon launches satellite communications with the help of Skylo — iPhone does not support it.
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