Browsing the internet will become possible for people travelling around Kyiv in the metro next year when Wi-Fi access will be installed in the underground.
Maydan
Nezalezhnosti station will be the first to receive this type of connection.
On Dec.
2, Fidomobile, a Ukrainian telecom services provider, signed a deal
with the Kyiv City Administration and became the contractor for installing Wi-Fi equipment in the capital
city’s metro. The company will invest as much as Hr 100 million into the
project with another Hr 10 million going to the Kyiv administration’s budget for the urban development
projects.
The company
aims to generate income through selling special subscription packages for metro passengers and publishing online ads during Wi-Fi sessions.
The requirements
of the City Hall’s initial tender, announced yet on March 21, included at least a
Hr 25 million budget for Wi-Fi installment and a Hr 1 million donation for the
development initiatives.
Wi-Fi project
will be conducted under the ‘Mosquito’ and will cover 774 of 824 carriages, 67.5
kilometers of metro lines and 52 stations along with the escalators. The
company will also be responsible for providing Wi-Fi connections to new stations
and lines when they will be built.
Jeff
Howley, the general director at Fidomobile, says the technology used for the Wi-Fi
system will be even more effective than the 4G, the fourth generation of mobile
telecommunications technology.
Its
primary advantage is going to be a high mobility, which is a prerequisite for
providing a large number of connections simultaneously. “We are going to
follow the world’s best example. In Seoul’s metro the same Wi-Fi technology
provides the internet speed of 100 megabits per second for the subscribers
moving with a speed reaching up to 120 kilometers per hour,” Howley says.
Many in Kyiv are pleased enough with having even a 20 megabit per second connection speed at their personal computers, with 5 megabits of speed on a
mobile device remaining a dream.
The
internet connection in the Kyiv underground will include a free offer and a premium
subscription package.
Free
usage will give passengers an internet access complemented with
advertising. They will be able to visit the news websites, information portals,
use social networks, mail agents and messengers.
Subscribers
of the premium package will have access to the high speed web connection
without any ads. The speed will allow them to watch high-quality video streams, play
online games and process big pieces of data. The subscriptions will be provided
for a day, week or a month, but the prices have not been set yet.
“Before
the project is launched it is too early to talk about exact figures (on
prices and revenue),” Howley says. “We are still doing marketing
research on which subscription packages will be affordable for the passengers,
which pricing model will be efficient, which payment methods will be the most
convenient,” he adds.
As part of the investment project Fidomobile is required to install a video surveillance
system in the metro to ensure passenger safety and prevent vandalism of its Wi-Fi devices.
However,
Fidomobile has not started to work on the either Wi-Fi and video surveillance projects
because of prolonged negotiations with the City Hall and metro administration.
“We are interested in kicking off soon,” says Howley, “but too much
paperwork needs to be done, too many permits need to be obtained – the projects won’t be finished until the end of 2015.”
There are downsides for a more modern metro though – the Metro
administration plans a major reform next year involving doubling the ticket
price to Hr 4, in order to change the
municipal’s company unprofitable business model. Nine month losses
this year reached Hr 435 million.
Kyiv
Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored
by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
