Leading Ukrainian telecommunications operator relies on S&T for important project.

With more than 22 mio subscribers, network coverage of nearly the whole territory of the Ukraine and around 4500 employees, Kyivstar GSM is a leading national telecommunications operator in terms of the number of subscribers, portfolio and services provided.
To secure its leadership position in the Ukrainian telecommunications market, Kyivstar is actively expanding its portfolio of services. Currently, among the operator’s priorities is the development of the wireless Internet access network. One of the main challenges in providing this service is ensuring that there is a reliable, affordable and convenient network access available for subscribers in places with no developed wired infrastructure. Kyivstar opted for the wireless solution based on the IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) standard.

S&T Ukraine, which is a long-time IT partner of Kyivstar, won the contract for the design and implementation of the wireless infrastructure. The solution chosen is the BreezeMAX® Extreme 5000 broadband wireless access system designed and manufactured by Alvarion Ltd. It is based on the IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard and includes a number of cutting edge wireless features.

“We were excited to partner with Kyivstar and S&T Ukraine for this WiMAX project,” said Ashish Sharma, vice president of marketing for Alvarion. “WiMAX provides a great business case for broadband services through an all-IP architecture, very high spectral efficiency and long range coverage capabilities.”

The new wireless access network will enable Kyivstar to provide the data transfer services in places with no wired infrastructure at speeds of up to 10 Mbps and ensure quality of service even under non-line-of-sight conditions. The system also enables service access through any base station without engaging operator’s resources or resetting the client device. “WiMAX is one of the technologies used by our company to enable broadband Internet access and provide a high quality service to our customers in a fast and effective way.” said Alexander Dorofiy, Deputy CTO of Kyivstar.

First project stage successfully completed

During the first stage of the project, S&T Ukraine has successfully delivered, implemented and set up equipment, completed the high level design and trained the mobile operator’s employees.

There are base stations deployed in the seven biggest Ukrainian cities as well as the backed up central node of the network implemented. The node functions are the base stations, client devices, network services and subscriber profiles management as well as subscriber authentication and provisioning. The project continues to ensure availability of the services in other Ukrainian cities.

S&T CEO Christian Rosner is happy about the new project with Kyivstar: “Staying on top in the highly competitive telco market is a constant challenge. We are proud to support Kyivstar and their innovative goals for many years now.”