Article: The Internet Service Providers in Ukraine

The Internet Service Providers in Ukraine
The magazine "Chip" analyses the services that are provided by the Ukrainian Internet Service Providers. According to the State Committee for Communication and Information, the number of the ISP's in Ukraine has increased by 25% in 2000 and reached total of 260. Thus a certain record has been achieved. Ukraine now holds the first place in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the number of Internet users leaves much to be desired. Taking into account the fact that there is more than one person per computer having Internet access, the number goes to 550, 000. Nevertheless it continues to grow steadily. The competition among providers contributed to monthly charge decrease, improved the quality of service and causing additional services to emerge. During the past 3 years average data exchange speed via dial up connection did not exceed 14.4 Kbps. The speed has now doubled. New technologies such as wireless communication, IP-telephony, Frame Relay are the reasons for this. Follows is the list of basic services that are offered by Ukrainian ISP's.	Dial up connection Dial-up remains the most popular connection to the Internet and is primarily due to reasonable price. Additionally, ISPs offer flexible rates in the form of various contracts (unlimited, day, night, weekend access), hourly access, prepaid cards and so on. To have unlimited access to the Internet a customer sings up at a note of $10-15 plus a minimal pre-payment that varies from $5 to $40. Internet access cost is very similar among all Ukrainian ISP's. However, the hourly access to the World Wide Web is more expensive in regions other then Kiev. It is $0.42-0.85 per hour in Kiev and about $1.20 to 1.40 per hour in Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr and Odessa. Internet prepaid service plastic cards have become an innovation for the year 2000. Ease of use, absence of registration and fees, are the major advantages. The cards offer an equivalent of a certain number of hours for the amount paid. Other cards enable a client to open a personal account on the ISP's site and then make necessary payments. Internet packages are another prepaid service. It allows paying either for a certain number of hours or for a certain period (from one month to a year).
Leased Line The leased phone line operates in synchronous and asynchronous modes. As a rule the asynchronous line maintains different data exchange speed that depends on the quality of connection. To hook up the asynchronous line a client pays around $250 for this arrangement, then makes an initial single payment and pays monthly fee. The monthly fee is usually $0.15 per 1Mb. It can also be a fixed fee. There is a higher demand for the synchronous connection that allows simultaneous data exchange in both directions at the speed that varies from 64Kbps to 2Mbps. A 2-4 line modem ($400-$1500) and router are required for this communication. The cost of the leased synchronous line with the 128 Kbps is about $650. A synchronous port with speed that does not exceed 2Mbps is $850.

Wireless Communication

Wireless ISP is a fairly new service that is now being offered by some Internet Service Providers in Ukraine. The big companies that have extensive local networks usually apply for this service. It allows reaching speeds starting from 64Kbps to 11Mbps. The WISP costs around $2000 with the ISA adapter and about $3000 with a client's interface 10 Base-T. The monthly fee is around $115, which is reasonable.

Digital Networks

The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) has been used by some ISPs in Ukraine since 1997. However, it is not as popular as it is in the US or Europe. It basically stems from the fact that very few ATSs (Automatic Telephone Systems) are suitable for this particular kind of service.

The Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a serious rival to the ISDN, which allows receiving information at 6Mbps and transmitting at 640Kbps.

ADSL is one of the DSL type of technologies. In Ukraine DSL is used by the Internet Service Providers as high speed leased lines. HDSL is the most widespread technology in Ukraine that allows reaching 2Mbps data exchange speeds in both directions.

Internet via the Satellite

Access to the Internet via satellite is now also available in Ukraine. It is primarily used in remote areaswhere conventional means are not accessible. Huge ISPs and enterprises are the only ones that can afford this service.

IP-Telephony

Many Ukrainian ISPs admit that IP-Telephony has become one of the most popular services. It allows transmission of voice messages and faxes in real time mode. Software products and IPhone, which is manufactured by VocalTec, enables the PC owner who has Internet access to talk with anyone possessing the same set anywhere the world. Phone calls become practically free and only for the Internet access cost.

Web Design and Hosting

Besides Internet access and IP Telephony, ISP's also offer web-design, hosting and advertising services.

Regarding web-design services, ISP's offer assistance in creating web sites, separate html pages, banners, visitors counter, scripts in JavaScript, Perl, TCL, Bash. ISP's very often involve special web design studios for these particular purposes. The web site creation costs about $250 and cost another $30-$60 to maintain it monthly.

An ISP can also arrange a site that will include all the miracles of design and programming such as dynamic navigation. Close interaction with the site visitors enables the site to collect as much information about clients as possible. This kind of powerful site can cost $5000 or more.

As a rule, ISP's offer free hosting space for around 2Mb. A customer pays $5 for every Mb that exceeds the limit. The scope of other services that are necessary for web site creation are also available, namely CGI and PHP scripts (counter, forum, guest book, chat room). It is feasible to work out web projects in Perl, PHP, Shell, C; obtain information about web site visitors; use MySQL and Postgres databases as well as the remote access to the server (FTP, Telnet, SSH).

Virtual hosting is an alternative to regular hosting service and is now also being offered by Ukrainian ISPs. However, this service is more expensive and the minimum cost is $150.

Domain Registration and other Services

To register and maintain a domain such as name.net, name.org, name.com, costs around $35-80 annually. Presently, it is possible to register a domain, like name.kiev.ua, name.com.ua, name.org.ua in the UA zone. It costs around $25-50 a year and with hosting packages it can sometimes be free.

An ISP can create an animating banner for a reasonable price of $10-20. The banner can be located on the ISP's sites or on the sites of other companies. The new-born site can be added to the Internet directories and search engines for another $15-20 but adding it to world wide search engines can cost up to $5000.

Ukrainian ISPs try to deal with everything that is

somehow related to computers and networks. They adjust PCs for individual and corporate work on the Internet (install UUPC e-mail, fix software programs for the operation in Windows, WinNT, OS/2, Macintosh, tune up CISCO PCs and Netblazers), lease routers and modems, offer training courses and consulting etc.

Ukraine-Today your portal to Ukraine can offer many of the same series that ISP's do at much more reasonable costs. These services include: web design and web page maintenance, hosting, co-hosting, domain name registration, adding to search engines, etc.