History
The company Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC) introduced mobile services in Ukraine, Sotel initially using the analog NMT standard, then using GSM-900 and 1800. In 1993 UMC Ukraine was Ukraine's SIM SIM major SIM SIM cellular operator. On July 1, 1993 the first call in the company's network was made, by the first president of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, who called the ambassador of Ukraine to Germany Ivan Piskov.[6]
In 2003 Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) bought the company. In October 2006, MTS Ukraine terminated its NMT service with plans to use the spectrum for the CDMA-450 rollout. From late 2006, MTS Ukraine has developed its 3G mobile network with the CDMA-450 1xEV-DO standard. As of 2016 the Ukrainian MTS network supports various value-added services based on GPRS / EGPRS / EDGE and SMS / WAP / MMS / USSD. MTS is the only BlackBerry service provider in Ukraine; it also provides Wi-Fi hotspots, mainly in large cities and at airports. Corporate social responsibility is one of the major strategic priorities of MTS Ukraine activity. On March 15, 2007, MTS Ukraine became the first telecommunication company in Ukraine to receive the Certificate of European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) "Perfection Recognition", which confirms the high standards of communication-operator work.
In 2008, and MTS Ukraine's owner MTS and Vodafone signed a strategic partnership.[5]
In 2011 MTS Ukraine openly declared its interest in acquiring Utel, a subsidiary of Ukrtelecom, Ukraine's monopolist telephone company, after Ukrtelecom announced plans to divest its mobile business.[7] Vasyl Latsanych was appointed as company general director this year.[8]
In October 2015 MTS and Vodafone expanded their strategic partnership; this resulted in the rebranding of MTS Ukraine as Vodafone Ukraine.[5]
On 11 and 12 January 2018, the company operations in Ukraine's separatist entities on the occupied territories of Luhansk Oblast (on 11 January) and Donetsk Oblast (on 12 January) were discontinued after a fibre-optic line cut.[9][10] This resulted in two million people losing mobile phone access.[9] Until the Vodafone Ukraine line was repaired the remaining mobile phone carriers available in the region were the two operated by the separatist authorities.[9] On 19 January the repair of the fibre optic line was completed and Vodafone Ukraine's services in territory controlled by the Luhansk People's Republic completely resumed.[11] However, the territory controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic remained without a mobile connection; "the network does not work for reasons unknown to us" according to Vodafone Ukraine.[11] On 23 March 2018, "Donetsk People's Republic" stated that Vodafone Ukraine could only resume operating in the territory controlled by it if it would start to pay taxes to the unrecognised state.[12]
In 2019 MTS sold its Ukraine operations to NEQSOL Holding,[13][3] an Azerbaijani holding company founded in the 1990s and led by Chairman Yusif Jabbarov, who also serves as Deputy Chairman of Vodafone Ukraine.[14]
