Ukrtelecom cleared of tax evasion relating to UMC sale Ukraine’s Kiev Arbitration Court has rejected claims by the State Tax Service that PTO Ukrtelecom owes the state more than UAH800 million (USD160 million) in unpaid taxes relating to the sale of its stake in Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC) to Mobile TeleSystems of Russia in 2003, reported Prime-TASS.

Kievstar charged by Antimonopoly Committee Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee has initiated a case against the country’s leading mobile operator Kievstar, after the company declined to provide reasoning for its introduction of subscriber connection fees. Both Kievstar and rival Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC) introduced connection fees of UAH0.27 (USD0.53) for every call they connect, in addition to standard per-minute call charges, in 2001. No other mobile operator charges connection fees. The committee says that UMC has asked for an extension to the deadline to provide reasoning for introducing the fees, but Kievstar has declined to cooperate, reported Prime-TASS.

UMC and Kievstar up in arms as Ukrtelecom is handed 3G licence Ukraine’s state-owned fixed line incumbent Ukrtelecom has been handed a 3G licence without a tender, much to the annoyance of cellcos UMC and Kievstar. All three companies applied to the regulator for an UMTS concession earlier this year, but Ukrtelecom is the only operator to have been successful so far. UMC and Kievstar now say they will send an open letter to the country’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, claiming that the award of the licence without tender is illegal. Ukrtelecom will pay UAH152 million (USD30 million) for its 3G spectrum. It is thought that the state-owned telco was awarded its concession to make it more desirable to investors ahead of its planned privatization, reported Prime-TASS.

Kievstar ups investment plans on 2006. Ukrainian cellco Kievstar says it will invest more than USD600 million in the expansion and upgrade of its network in 2006, up from USD594 million in 2005. The operator is hoping to receive a 3G licence in the near future after it applied to the regulator for a UMTS concession earlier this year. State-owned incumbent Ukrtelecom is the only operator to have received a 3G concession so far, but Kievstar is confident that its own licence will soon follow, reported Prime-TASS.

Ukrainian CDMA operators International Telecommunication Company (ITC) and CST-Invest have obtained CDMA licenses for a number of Ukrainian regions from the country’s National Commission for Telecommunications Regulation, the commission said Thursday.
ITC obtained a 7-year license for operating in the Lviv, Ternopil, Zakarpatska, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions, the commission said.
ITC currently provides CDMA services in the city of Kiev, as well as in the Kiev, Poltava, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv and Zhytomir regions.
CST-Invest obtained a 10-year license for the Kiev, Rivne, Ternopil and Cherkasy regions, as well as a 7-year license for the Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Volyn, Donetsk, Zhytomir, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson regions and the city of Sevastopol in Ukraine’s constituent republic of Crimea, the commission said.
Currently, CST-Invest provides CDMA services in the Dnipropetrovsk Region.
The total subscriber base of all CDMA operators in Ukraine rose 43% year-to-date to 100,000 people as of July 1, the Association of CDMA Operators of Ukraine said earlier.

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