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Internet Underground - but in Kiev, not London, of course ...

The company which was once seen as a small sidekick of star WISP, Invisible Networks - ip.access ltd - is providing underground phone services in Kiev.

The company has the ability to stick GSM phone transceivers on the end of Internet Protocol links. It has been invaluable in small rural communities where full-scale phone masts cause ill-feeling, also allowing the phone providers to give a service in areas that wouldn't be commercially viable. Now, ip.access has announced a deal with Proximus L.L.C., a Ukrainian company, which will see ip.access supply its nanoBTS GSM basestations for installation in the below-ground section of the Kiev Metro. One more underground system which was created decades after the London Underground, and yet somehow can manage to provide the Internet underground before the UK capital city can.

This application is a world first, blending GSM and IP technology to provide underground coverage to over 1.7 million Kiev commuters per day.

Proximus has an agreement with the Kiev Metro to lease space and communications infrastructure to install the subsystem which in turn will be subleased to mobile network operators. The first network operator to sign up is UMC (Ukrainian Mobile Communications), the biggest GSM operator in Ukraine.

The ip.access solution "will enable Proximus to deliver both coverage and capacity, exactly where it is required," said the official release. "Basestations will be positioned throughout the subway's 38 below-ground stations, and will be connected back into the city's above-ground mobile network to deliver ubiquitous coverage right across Kiev. The nanoBTS basestations are connected using optical fibre to the BSC. From there E1 links connect into the mobile cellular communication company UMC's MSC."

"Working with ip.access, Proximus will be able to deliver an innovative solution to the issue of zero coverage in the underground system across Kiev," says Yuri Nebosenko, General Director at Proximus L.L.C. "The underground has been a communications black spot for too long and nowadays commuters are demanding coverage wherever they are. The ip.access basestation enables us to provide this extended coverage without disruption and high prices for the Metro and mobile network operators. In the near future, Proximus will expand its underground network by installing additional ip.access basestations, thus enabling the use of dedicated radio-subsystems by each GSM operator in Kiev."