Cellphone carrier plans to buy $100 million in equipment in next 3 years
or has signed a $32.5 million equipment order with Sweden's Ericsson telecommunications company to improve services and expand DCC's network in Ukraine.
The company also said it plans to purchase equipment worth $100 million from Ericsson over the next three years.
Ericsson announced the terms of the deal on April 14, while DCC said it had, in fact, inked the contract in March this year.
No officials at Ericsson were immediately available for comment.
The purchase will help Donetsk-based DCC expand its network to cover another five regions in eastern Ukraine, said Oleksnadr Shyshkin, DCC's marketing director.
DCC, one of Ukraine's five cellular phone providers, currently covers the country's major cities and small swathes of territory around them with its digital D-AMPS standard.
The agreement should allow DCC to better compete with its better-funded major rivals, which have left DCC behind in recent years by offering better services and wider coverage.
DCC's rivals – Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC), Golden Telecom, Kyivstar and Ukrainian Radio Systems (operator of Wellcom) – all operate on the most popular European digital network standard, GSM.
DCC has stepped up its drive to catch up with its rivals over the last year, with Ericsson supplying most of the equipment. Ericsson said this was the fifth expansion order it had received from DCC, according to a Reuters report.
'The equipment will let us cover a half of Ukraine's territory and offer our subscribers SMS [short message service] and prepaid services,' he said.
Shyshkin said the latest deal is the company's fifth expansion order from Ericsson and is in response to the swift growth in the number of DCC's subscribers. He said DCC now boasts up to 45,000 clients, up from 15,000 at the same time in 1998.
The deal is part of a massive expansion plan, Shyshkin said. He said DCC would spend another $100 million over the next three years to buy equipment from Ericsson. Purchases will help DCC further expand coverage and increase service quality, he said. DCC would not reveal its ownership structure.
