Internet in Ukraine

The Internet in Ukraine is well developed and steadily growing, mostly uninfluenced by the global financial crisis; in April 2012 rapid growth was forecast for at least two more years.^[1] As of 2011, Ukraine was ranked 9th in the "Top 10 Internet countries in Europe", with then 33.9% Internet penetration and 15.3 million users; growing to 36.8% in 2012.^[2]

In 2011, online retailing turnover in Ukraine exceeded USD 2 bn. For 2012, it was expected to reach USD 4 bn. Online payments in the country in 2011 where estimated at USD 400 million, 200% growth compared to 2010.^[3]

As of 2011, Ukraine ranked 8th among the world’s countries with the fastest Internet access speed, with an average download speed of 1,190 kbit/s.^[4]

According to Freedom House, the Internet in Ukraine is "Free", in contrast to Ukraine's news media as a whole which is considered to be only "Partly Free".^[5]

Internet audience

According to the Internet Association of Ukraine, 48% of Ukraine's population older than 15 have had access to Internet in March 2012; 31% of them were accessing the Internet daily.^[6]

According to GfK Ukraine polls of 2012, 16,8 million people (43,5% of Ukraine's population older than 16) accessed Internet in the month preceding poll, which was the 10% increase to 2011 results.^[2]

A February 2012 general population poll by Research & Branding Group showed that 59% of those polled did not use the internet.^[7]

Year	Population	Penetration	Internet Users	Change from previous year
2000	49,429,600	0.4%	200,000
2001	48,923,100	0.61%	300,000	050.0%
2002	48,457,000	0.83%	400,000	033.3%
2003	48,003,000	2.08%	1,000,000	0150.0%
2004	47,622,000	3.15%	1,500,000	050.0%
2005	47,280,000	4.12%	1,950,000	030.0%
2006	46,929,000	5.60%	2,630,000	034.9%
2007	46,646,000	9.02%	4,207,391	059.9%
2008	46,372,000	18.27%	8,471,954	0101.4%
2009	46,143,000	25.92%	11,960,000	041.2%
2010	45,962,000	29.05%	13,330,000	011.5%
2011	45,778,000	33.42%	15,300,000	014.8%
2012	45,633,000	36.80%	16,792,000	09.8%
2013	45,553,000	39.51%	est. 18,000,000	07.2%

Internet services

In 2011 the number of subscribers to Internet service providers^[8] in Ukraine had increased compared to 2010 by 13.3% to 4,148,658.^[7] By the of 3rd quarter of 2012, number of broadband subscribers alone exceeded that figure, grown to 6 700 000.^[9] 2011 revenues from Internet service providing in Ukraine reached UAH 4.75 bn (USD 595 mn).^[7] It is unclear whether these numbers include mobile Internet services which are provided by all of Ukraine's mobile phone operators.

Access technologies

All existing standards of Internet access are available in Ukraine, with broadband services mostly limited to cities.

Mobile GPRS access is available in vast majority of Ukraine's territory, including all urban areas and airports, most roads and railway lines, many coastal waters. 3G mobile access market is steadily developing. Public Wi-Fi hotspots are widespread throughout cities. There are plans and projects for providing mass wireless broadband access in urban open spaces, on Ukrzaliznytsia long-distance trains and in urban public transport vehicles. According to Ericsson ConsumerLab, 36% of Ukraine's urban population access the Internet via mobile phone or smartphone.^[10]

According to the iKS-Consulting, there were 6 700 000 broadband subscribers in Ukraine as of 3Q 2012; 5.97 millions of them were households, which amounts to 34% broadband Internet penetration of all country's households. The consultancy estimated broadband providing revenues in the 3rd quarter of 2012 at UAH 1.36 bn (USD 167 mn), which is the growth 13.7% compared to 3Q 2011 results.^[11]

Thousands of national, regional and local ISP operate in Ukraine, with as much 14 ISPs competing for every household client in the capital city Kiev.^[12]

Major Internet service providers

According to Expert & Consulting (E&C), the top-10 Ukrainian fixed Broadband Internet service providers had about 3,36 millions subscribers as of the 2nd quarter of 2012; as of the 3rd quarter, that figure rose to about 3,46 millions subscribers.^[13][14] According to estimations of Expert & Consulting (E&C), there were 7,06 mln. subscribers of fixed Broadband Internet at the end of 1st half of 2013.^[15]

Ukrtelecom is the largest Internet access provider (as well as fixed telephone provider) and the only UMTS 3G provider in Ukraine. In particular, it was serving over 1.4 millions DSL/ISDN fixed access clients in June 2012.^[16] The second-largest provider Volia is a major player specializing in cable access combined with TV signal. Both MTS^[17] and Kyivstar^[18] (Ukraine's largest mobile phone operators) also offer fixed broadband access along with their mobile Internet services. Both companies also offer a 3G mobile access: the Kyivstar is reselling the Ukrtelecom's UMTS services and the MTS is maintaining its own CDMA2000 network in major urban areas.

Social networks

Facebook

There were 1,686,500 Facebook users in Ukraine in 2011 and over 3,000,000 in October 2013.^[19]

Twitter

According to the Google Analytics, in 2012 the number of daily Twitter visitors from Ukraine reaches 120,000 while the "Yandex.Ukraine" estimated the number of Ukrainian users at 500,000, and GfK Ukraine, a market research company, found that a quarter of Ukrainian Twitter users ignore their accounts completely, while 28 percent check them only occasionally.^[20] Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko was the most followed Twitter user in Ukraine as of early 2012, with 91,547 followers.^[20]

VK

According to Alexa Internet ranking, VK is the most visited website in Ukraine.^[21] According to the company, in January 2012 VK had more than 20 million registered users from Ukraine (out of a total of 155 million users worldwide); 6.6 million of them visited the site daily.^[22] As of February 2013, VK's mean daily audience in Ukraine grew to 9.35 million (according to Liveinternet), which amounted to 20.2% of the network's mean daily global traffic.^[23]

Internet-based commerce and trade

Online retail

According to the 2013 TEMAX index by the GfK, Ukraine's online house appliances and consumer electronics market is the second-fastest growing in Europe (after the Turkish) with estimated 2012 size of ₴5,000,000,000. There were estimated 5,000-7,000 online shops in operation across the country, with about 1,300 of them working in the house appliances and consumer electronics sector.^[24]

Online ticketing

E-ticketing is rapidly growing in Ukraine, being recently boosted by the Ukrzaliznytsia national railway operator's implementation of its own online booking system, available in Ukrainian and English.^[25] Tickets for all regular airline flights and vast majority of the intercity bus services^[26] are also available for booking or purchase through independent online service providers.

Online banking

Vast majority of Ukraine's banks offer online banking (usually free of charge). Payments for vast and growing number of services are accepted online (both through the ATM card payments systems and the independent electronic money facilitators); all possible payments from a person are typically accepted online in big cities.^{[citation needed]}

Internet censorship and surveillance

In December 2010 the OpenNet Initiative found little or no evidence of Internet filtering in all four areas (political, social, conflict/security, and Internet tools) for which they test.^[27]

In its Freedom on the Net report covering the period May 2012 through April 2013, Freedom House found the Internet in Ukraine to be "largely unhindered" and rated the Internet in Ukraine as "Free" with an overall score of 28 on a scale from 0 (most free) to 100 (least free). The report said that "there is no practice of institutionalized blocking or filtering, or a regulatory framework for censorship of content online", but "there have been attempts at creating legislation which could censor or limit content" and would "present indirect threats to freedom of information online."^[28]

Access to Internet content in Ukraine remains largely unfettered. Ukraine possesses relatively liberal legislation governing the Internet and access to information. The Law on Protection of Public Morals of 20 November 2003, prohibits the production and circulation of pornography; dissemination of products that propagandize war or spread national and religious intolerance; humiliation or insult to an individual or nation on the grounds of nationality, religion, or ignorance; and the propagation of "drug addition, toxicology, alcoholism, smoking and other bad habits."^[27]

While there are no government restrictions on access to the Internet, law enforcement bodies are known to monitor the Internet, at times without appropriate legal authority. There have been occasional agitations of interference by law enforcement agencies with prominent bloggers and online publications.^[29]

The constitution and laws provide for freedom of speech and press. However, the government does not always respect these rights in practice. Individuals can criticize the government publicly and privately. Libel is considered a civil offense, and the law limits the amount of damages that may be claimed in libel lawsuits. The press can publish critical materials and opinions without penalty, and public officials enjoy fewer legal protections from criticism than other citizens. However, local media observers express concern over high monetary damages that at times were demanded and awarded for alleged libel. The constitution prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, however, in practice authorities generally do not respect these prohibitions.^[29] For example:

• On 17 August 2012, opposition politician Oleksandr Turchynov alleged that law enforcement officials monitored and tracked opposition activists without legal permission.
• On 20 August 2012, Serhiy Vlasenko, a lawyer for former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, alleged that authorities had him under surveillance, tapped his telephones, and watched his e-mail account.
• While, by law the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) may not conduct surveillance or searches without a court-issued warrant, citizens have the legal right to examine any dossier concerning them in the possession of the SBU and to recover losses resulting from an investigation, authorities generally do not respect these rights because implementing legislation has not been enacted, and many citizens are not aware of their rights or that authorities have violated their privacy.

See also

• Telecommunications in Ukraine
• Economy of Ukraine

References

• Главными трендами Уанета станут электронная коммерция, мобильные приложения и медиа - участники рынка by Korrespondent.net (Russian)
• Эксперты: в Украине домашний доступ в Интернет есть у 40% граждан, - rbc.ua (Russian)

External links

• Internet Association of Ukraine
• Watcher: (Ukrainian) - Ukrainian Internet business and marketing online newspaper
• ProIT (Russian) - Ukrainian IT industry online newspaper
• AIN (Russian) - Ukrainian IT industry online newspaper