OREANDA-NEWS. January 30, 2012. Mobile operator life:) celebrates 7 years of its activities on the Ukrainian market. For such a short term, due to its employees’ devoted work and its subscribers’ trust, the company has reached really global success: it has covered 92% of the territory of the second biggest country in Europe, brought numerous innovations to the local market and turned into essential part of life of 9.3 million people.  

Every year of mobile operator life:) is filled with bright discoveries, events and achievements. The seventh year is no exception. In 2011 the company announced a new strategy - RED2, the key elements of which are regional growth, executional excellence, differentiation and data transfer. Last year the company significantly expanded its coverage and improved the network quality, suggested a number of attractive tariffs and services, became closer to customers with opening its own group in the popular social network VKontakte and an additional call centre in Sumy.

Regional growth

In 2011 life:) paid especial attention to the regions and created a number of attractive tariffs, aimed at subscribers’ needs in various fields. Due to this approach the number of operator’s subscribers increased by 15-18% in the eastern and western regions of the country. Moreover, in 2011 the operator launched a range of offers that provide customers with convenient communication in roaming. As a result, the number of life:) subscribers who used operator’s services abroad increased by 40%, while the number of foreign visitors who chose life:) in Ukraine grew up by 200% comparing to 2010. In 2011, the company also decreased the prices for Internet services in roaming in 100 times, enabling subscribers to increase this service usage by 300%.

Executional excellence

life:) infrastructure is steadily growing along with the operator: during the seventh year it was enriched with 508 new base stations and 9,916 new TRX, increasing operator’s geographic coverage up to 92% and population coverage up to 98%. In 2011, the company conducted large-scale network upgrade, increasing its capacity and data rate. In order to do that it introduced new technologies (EDA, 30 multislot classes), completed the project for backbone network expansion, based on next generation dense wavelength division multiplexing equipment (DWDM), etc. It helped to achieve average data transfer rate of 120 Kb/sec in Ukraine and the best indicator for Europe for EDGE technology - 160-180 Kb/sec in some regions of the country.

In summer the company opened a new call centre in Sumy together with its partner Global Bilgi. And the billing platform, updated in late 2010, provided better billing accuracy, better quality of servicing, decrease of traffic drop number. This had a positive impact on the growth of subscribers’ satisfaction as well as it was recognized by international experts: in 2011 the system received Global Broadband Traffic Management Awards (Global BBTM Awards), a prestige award in this field.

Differentiation

And, finally, life:) changed its look with introducing the innovative marketing platform – World of Communication. It became even more emotional and memorable, standing out clearly on the telecommunication market. In 2011 the company strengthened its position in the field of social responsibility, being in the top ten of the best such companies in accordance with all-Ukrainian rating Guardia magazine for the third time. Besides, life:) has expanded the program for students - Jump into life:). In 2011 it enabled 120 students to study in the walls of the company, 59 students to complete probation and 19 students to get a job in various departments of the company. Also, in 2011 Jump into life:) was recognized as one of the best CSR MarketPlace projects. At the end of 2011 the operator launched life:) Volunteers program that involves company employees into the charity. The operator also updated the program To help Is So Easy! that fights against child homelessness.

Data transfer

The operator pays especial attention to the direction that serves as a global trend today – mobile Internet and value-added services. Due to attractive offers and network quality in 2011, life:) subscribers used twice as much GPRS/EDGE traffic as they had used in 2010. While in the beginning of the year subscribers consumed 4.5 TB per day, at the end of the year this figure amounted to 9.5 TB per day. Moreover, the operator has entered 2012 with a record figure 10 TB per day. In 2011 the number of smartphones increased in more than 7 times in the network, while the number of tablet devices grew up in several times. Specially for such gadgets the operator introduced a unique life:) online package with universal SIM card and attractive rates.

Alexander Barinov, Chief Executive Officer of life:), commented: "We are grateful to all our subscribers for their loyalty and support during these seven years and we are looking forward to our future close cooperation in 2012. We are striving to bring joy into our customers’ life in the future with attractive tariffs, high quality of our network, bright advertisement and services of the world level. And of course, we are cleaving our motto: Get more! "