In the center of Lviv, 5G mobile communication with a data transfer speed of about 500 Mbps has officially started operating for the first time. To access 5G, you need to have a smartphone with 5G support and be in the coverage area.
This is written by the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.
Lviv has become a technological laboratory, as the city has one of the highest penetration rates of 5G-ready smartphones in Ukraine. At the start, more than 20 5G base stations were installed to work out all the technical aspects before scaling up.
The network is planned to be expanded after approval by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and successful testing. In January, the pilot 5G will be launched in Borodyanka, in February — in Kharkiv, and later in other cities of Ukraine.
The main difference between 5G and 4G is the speed of operation — if for the fourth generation wireless Internet the maximum data transfer speed reaches 10 Mbps, then for the fifth this speed increases to at least 100 Mbps.
In the fall of 2020, the government approved the 5G Development Plan in Ukraine. The tender for frequencies was planned to be reported in October 2021, but the date was later postponed for a year, but the full-scale war forced the plans to be postponed for security reasons.
The fifth generation of 5G mobile networks was first launched in test mode by the mobile operator Vodafone in 2024. The Promprilad Innovation Center in Ivano-Frankivsk, the Vodafone office in Kyiv, and the Nokia office in Helsinki made calls using 5G and checked the quality of the connection.
In November 2024, the government amended the regulation on the use of radio frequencies. This is how the 5G project began to be implemented in three Ukrainian cities. The regulation also provides greater flexibility for operators — from then on, the 2100 MHz frequency can be used not only for 3G, but also for 2G or 4G.
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