Kyiv City State Administration on Feb. 13 terminated a deal with Mosquito Mobile to set up a Wi-Fi network in Kyiv’s metro, bring the skeleton mobile internet service in the underground to a halt.
Mosquito Mobile won a tender in 2014 to set up a Wi-Fi network in the metro. The total sum of investment planned was Hr 100 million.
The deal, which was signed between Kyiv metro’s administration, Mosquito Mobile LLC and the department of economics and investment of Kyiv City State Administration, was terminated on Feb. 1.
In 2015, the Wi-Fi service was successfully tested in three central metro stations – Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Ploshcha Lva Tolstoho and Olimpiska. Later, passengers could pick up a signal in 12 more. The company claimed it would introduce Wi-Fi services at all stations by the end of 2016, but that never happened.
Mosquito used U.S. equipment – Cisco routers in Kyiv’s 52 stations and in trains, and Firetide nodes in the tunnels of the network’s three lines. The company hoped advertising would pay for the Wi-Fi service – a business model successfully pioneered in Moscow’s metro.
Under the tender agreement, Mosquito was also to install a video surveillance system throughout the metro. The video system would belong to the city, and be maintained and controlled by the metro and the National Police.
In early January 2018, Director General of the Kyiv Investment Agency Oleh Mistiuk said that over the last year Mosquito had ceased to expand the Wi-Fi network in the metro because it was experiencing financial problems.
Mosquito’s owner, Oleksandr Adarych, ran into financial problems when one of his assets, Fidobank, was declared insolvent by the National Bank of Ukraine in 2016.
