Lifecell

Company Overview

Lifecell is the third largest mobile network operator servicing Ukraine. The company began operations in 2005 as Astelit Mobile Communications branded as "Life:)". Initially joint owned by Turkcell (55%) and SCM Holdings (45%), the company was wholly acquired by Turkcell in July 2015. The company rebranded from Life:) to Lifecell in 2016.

Lifecell has provided 2G GSM services over the 900 and 1800 MHz bands since inception. 3G UMTS was launched in June 2015, offering a unique 3C-HSPA+ service providing a peak DL of 63 Mbps. After securing 2600 MHz spectrum in January 2018, the company launched 4G LTE-A Pro services over the B7 (2600 MHz) band in April 2018. Following the awarding of 1800 MHz spectrum in the March 2018 auctions, Lifecell announced plans to expand its LTE-A Pro network to include a B3 (1800 MHz) service by July 2018. This was later confirmed when the company announced B3 coverage of 232 settlements in June 2018.

As Lifecell's 2600 MHz holdings are non-contiguous (10 MHz UL: 2535 to 2545 MHz), (5 MHz UL: 2565 to 2575 MHz), the addition of B3 may permit the company to utilise the 5 MHz carrier in a CA_3A-7A-7A aggregation mode, however this is yet unconfirmed.

The company announced it had begun testing of 32T32R Massive MIMO in April 2019 advising it expects to provide up to a 5x increase in DL throughput on its network.

Lifecell IoT

Unlike the company's domestic competitors, Lifecell has opted to invest in LoRa IoT technology which operates over the EU868 band in Ukraine. The network is currently in build-out.