OREANDA-NEWS. February 22, 2012. During 2011 Kyivstar was carrying out the upgrading of the mobile communications network on the territory of Western Ukraine. During January-December the Company built 250 base stations in all eight oblasts of Western Ukraine, expanding the coverage and significantly increasing the network throuput capacity.

The expansion of coverage andnetwork capacity is part of the program to prepare the network for the European Football Championship to be held in Ukraine in 2012.

In the planning andconstruction of base stations special attention was paid to providing reliable and high quality connection along the main roads in the region, at state border crossings, at railway stations and transport terminals, as well as within the adjacent area to the "Arena Lviv" stadium in Lviv, where the championship games will be played.

Due to theactivities carried out to increase the network capacity in the area of the "Arena Lviv" stadium, Kyivstar provided its subscribers with reliable communications during the inauguration of the stadium, as well as a friendly test match between Ukraine and Austria. Before the beginning of the championship the Company is planning to build a base station near the "Arena Lviv", and also at the new terminal of the Danylo Galytskyi International Lviv Airport.

Volodymyr Tiutiunnyk, Deputy Technical Director, Lviv Subsidiary, Kyivstar:

"Providing high quality and reliable mobile communications is a Kyivstar key priority. At present, the Company specialists are making every effort to ensure that our subscribers could freely use the Company network at any time."

The "Kyivstar" network in Western Ukraine operates in Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Volyn, Rivne, Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts. Every week more than one billion minutes of telephone calls are made and 28 terabytes of data are transmitted.