Donetsk, Feb 5 - DAN. Nearly 930,000 people have become customers of DPR’s mobile operator Phoenix, the Republic’s Communications Ministry press service told Donetsk News Agency on Monday.
“As of today, DPR mobile operator Phoenix has 929,637 customers,” a press service representative said. “Two hundred and eighty thousand people joined the domestic operator since the shutdown of Vodafone (MTS-Ukraine) network in the republic on 11 January.”
The Ukrainian company suspended operation due to cable damage in the vicinity of frontline Elenovka. This sharply increased the demand for domestic operator phone plans and tapped Phoenix resources considerably causing network outages.
To improve link performance DPR specialists relaunched more than 120 base stations that earlier were part of Lifecell network. DPR Communications Ministry also asked Vodafone to restore its operation in DPR.
Phoenix is the first DPR mobile operator covering the whole territory of the republic. It was test-launched on 16 June 2015. Phoenix call plans became available at post offices six weeks later. The company began full-fledged operation in February 2016. *jk