The Ukrainian mobile operator lifecell was fined 10.45 million hryvnias for failure to comply with the requirements for preparing for blackouts.
This decision was made by the National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the fields of electronic communications, radio frequency spectrum and the provision of postal services (NCEC).
Since January 2023, NCEC has started checking the state of readiness to provide communication services in conditions of a possible lack of power supply for at least three days.
In total, the regulator conducted 22 unscheduled inspections at the facilities of Vodafone mobile operators — in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk and Mykolaiv regions; Kyivstar — in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv and Khmelnytskyi regions; lifecell — in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Rivne, Chernihiv, Sumy and Poltava regions.
During the inspections, NCEC found violations in all three mobile operators. During repeated audits, it turned out that all operators, except for lifecell in the Rivne region, had eliminated the violations.
Because of this, the regulator fined the operator 0.1% of revenue in 2023, which is 10.45 million.