On February 14, a pilot 5G was launched in Kharkov - this is the third city in Ukraine after Lviv and Borodyanka, where the new generation mobile Internet operates. Now 5G operates in certain locations in the center of Kharkov and is already used for digital services.

This was reported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation. A pilot version of the fifth generation mobile Internet – 5G – was officially launched in the city center.

Kharkov became the third city in Ukraine where this technology began to work, despite the fact that the city is located only 30 kilometers from the border and is regularly exposed to shelling. It is symbolic that the first to test 5G were the newlyweds - Vladislav and Ekaterina, who got married through the Diya app on Valentine's Day.

According to Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for Digital Infrastructure Development Stanislav Pribitko, Kharkov became the logical next step after launches in Lviv and Borodyanka. First, 5G was tested in settlements more distant from the front, coordinating technical parameters with the military. Now the state is ready to introduce the technology in front-line cities. Now the new communication standard is available only at certain locations in the central part of the city. However, according to the mayor Igor Terekhov, this is only the first stage. There are plans to gradually expand coverage.

The mayor emphasized that 5G is not only about comfort and fast Internet. In military conditions, this is also the rapid transfer of data, operational coordination and preservation of life, because the speed of response during emergencies is critical.

In the Kharkov region today there are about two thousand base stations equipped with batteries that ensure communication operation for at least five hours without electricity. In addition, some stations have already begun to be equipped with generators so that mobile communications remain stable even during long blackouts.

5G is a new generation of mobile Internet that provides data transfer on average 10 times faster than 4G, as well as a more stable signal and lower latency. The first test zones appeared in Ukraine even before the full-scale war, but the invasion forced the focus on restoring destroyed networks.