January 11, mobile communication from MTS was stopped. It soon became
clear that the reason for this was the damage to the fiber optic cable near
Yelenivka village, in the so-called "gray zone". The repair teams of
mobile operators or public utilities, when visiting the gray zone, are often
subjected to shelling and human losses, so they did not hurry to go there
without security guarantees.
Donbas side claims that
Ukrainian military have shelled the wires, so that they do not work. Ukrainian
experts and journalists say about planned disconnection of mobile
communications in the self-proclaimed DPR as a step to remove the competitor to
the Republican operator Phoenix and to close the revenues from mobile
communications on one company.
The last assumption was in
general indirectly confirmed by the statement of the "Ministry of
Communications of Donetsk People's Republic" that in just a few days,
about 50 thousand Phoenix mobile cards were bought out, and this despite the
fact that the price of one card was 506 hryvnia ($ 18), although its usual cost
is 101 hryvnia ($ 3,6). The total number of subscribers of the company since
April 2015 was about 630 thousand people.
January 15, leader of the self-proclaimed DPR Zakharchenko announced
about possible "nationalization" of Vodafone on the territory of the
republic. Actually, this is how "Phoenix" appeared (on the basis of
the "nationalized" "Kyivstar" operator).
The operator stated that it
has satisfied its application for access to the accident site to repair the
cable with the mediation of the OSCE and SCCC. Work should begin on January 18.
In the
meantime, residents of the self-proclaimed "DPR" have two options:
1.
They might wait for the return
of the MTS. Strangely enough, but in some areas the mobile connection from MTS
was available, however, the company explained that this was due the capacity of
base stations located on the Ukrainian territory.
2.
They might call from
"Phoenix" to MTS. As it turned out, this is still possible, however,
there are a number of nuances:
a) it is
necessary to start dialing from the international standard "+38";
b) the call
is charged as an international one, the cost is 5 hryvnia (17 cents) per 1
minute;
c) the
quality of communication is often poor;
d) usually
the conversation lasts only a few minutes;
e) MTS
subscribers cannot call Phoenix.
As a result,
people who were outraged by Vodafone’s growth of tariffs, have lost their
money. The alternative in the form of calls via "Phoenix" is much
more expensive than Vodafone services. Subscribers have a dilemma: pay the
Ukrainian operator UAH 90 ($ 3) and unlimitedly talk with Ukraine or limit
their communication with relatives through Phoenix to some 10-15 minutes a
month.
