Internet in Kharkov

The last 3 months have seen some big improvements in net access here in Kharkov. A double whammy of real 3G launching and home broadband speeds rocketing have made youtube much more enjoyable. I never quite understood the 3G approach here. The government gave the european type 3G licence to UKRTelecom, the state owned company, who proceeded to not do very much with it. In the meantime a company called PeopleNet (who have a lovely shop on Sumskaya which I for months thought was a recruitment agency) launched 3G on the funny american system. A system which Nokia make no phones for which points to its usefullness. But their broadband access is pretty cheap when you get a compatible phone; but of the few phones they sell they are expensive and are cutting edge in stonehenge terms. I enquired anyway, and asked about phone calls and roaming. Well, they have a network built in the big urban areas like Kiev and Kharkov. Go outside of that and umm, well the phone stops working. It’s not the GSM standard so cannot switch nets. Really a company that cannot survive.
Kharkov is also at the forefront of Wimax; all the areas in the city and 40 or so km around is wimax enabled. But this is priced at the high end of the market (this from a foreigner) so  only useful if you wish to retire to a country estate near Kharkov.

So along comes U-Tel, which is the 3G brand from UKRTelecom. Not the best marketed product it must be said. In fact, I had to ask multiple people if it really existed and it took me 2 attempts to find the office where I could buy a SIM. And when I did find the office, the staff had all gone to lunch. At least it was easy to buy when they returned, must have been a good mayonnaise that day. Contract data rates are much cheaper than pay as you go. The latter costs $20 for a SIM with connection and $10 credit – they took my old Nokia N70 and set it up for me enjoying the english menus. Data costs about $0.05 per MB and it is pretty reliable and fastish (I got about 380kbit/s connection speed). You are meant to be able to buy top-up credit all over the place from the street vendors but I failed; had to return to the shop. 3 contract rates are available, for $15, $30 and $60 giving 1,3 or 15 GB of data included and with rates above that amount at 4, 3 and 2 cents a MB. When asking, contract is the same word in russian but the pay as you go is some bizarre toungue twister so the phrase ‘tri G nyet contract’ works pretty well.

UKRTelecom in a burst of actually doing something then also upgraded home internet (the OGO! brand) and lowered the prices. Now they have ADSL up to 4MBit/s unlimited whereas previously anything over 512 was metered. Now 512 costs $20 a month, up to $50 for the 4MBit/s. ADSL requires a friendly (and present) landlord to sign the forms.

There is growing wi-fi availability across the centre too. Some cafes like Pushka, Fidele, KoKava and 22 on Petrosgova provide free wi-fi, you just have to ask for the password (parol in russian). These places make good temporary offices. Other cafes have paid for wi-fi where you have to buy a prepaid card (not from the cafe itself of course). UKRTelecom also have a network of paid for wi-fi hotspots but not very intensive in Kharkov. . Plus of course plenty of unsecured wi-fi spots are around as everywhere such as the hotel Chichikov.

And last but not least there are a number of internet cafes dotted around; the one in Hotel Kharkov popular with foreigners. Beware of some of the gaming internet cafes; I have never seen so many viruses on a PC in my life..

My god this is a boring post. Give me a correctly spelt cappuccino !