Ukraine is expecting to have partial 5G network coverage by 2030, according to Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Stanislav Prybytko.
Prybytko told Forbes Ukraine that he believes the 5G network can cover the majority of Ukraine by 2030; testing is already underway in Lviv, Kharkiv and Borodyanka – a city in the Kyiv region.
Prybytko said President Volodymyr Zelensky chose the cities in part due to their symbolic values.
“Kharkiv is the president’s idea. Testing in Kharkiv proves that, despite constant shelling, the city is developing,” Prybytko said. Kyiv Post previously covered Kharkiv’s wartime tech sector in an interview with the executive director of the Kharkiv IT Cluster.
“Borodyanka is a symbol of Ukraine’s reconstruction after significant post-war destruction. Technologies for the ‘Smart City’ and construction are being used there, and there is a lack of new mobile technology,” Prybytko added.
Previously, another official from the ministry told Kyiv Post that the technology cannot be implemented at present as the ministry needs to “do a lot of research to understand that 5G equipment will not interfere in the military operations during martial law.”
Preparations for 5G began in 2017 when former President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on its rollout. Testing followed in 2021, with a nationwide launch planned for 2022 – plans derailed by Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The 5G technology, as opposed to the 4G networks being used in Ukraine, presents more than 10 times the mobile internet speed and can open up a variety of applications, where its low latency and high network capacity can help process a large amount of data at once and foster artificial intelligence (AI) usage, for example.
In late 2024, Ukraine also conducted non-public 5G testing in Lviv.