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Half of the country was paralyzed because of Kyivstar failure: what happened and when the connection will be restored

On Tuesday, Dec. 12, a large-scale failure in the work of one of the leading mobile operators - Kyivstar, occurred in Ukraine. Users have been without communication and Internet for more than six hours. The company promised to restore the work till the evening.

"Apostrophe" knows everything about the biggest failure in the work of the national operator.

Kyivstar users were unable to make or receive calls and use internet services. The company's mobile applications were also temporarily unavailable.

According to users, problems started closer to 7 a.m. on December 12. People from Kiev, Zaporizhzhya, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk regions complain about the failure - when they try to make a phone call, they hear "the mobile network is unavailable" in response.

The company's Press Service commented on the failure and promised to fix all the problems within 4-5 hours. In particular, they explained that Kyivstar's network was targeted by a powerful hacker attack, which caused the technical failure. The operator has engaged representatives of law enforcement agencies and special state services who are currently working in the company's office to record the circumstances and consequences of illegal actions to interfere with the Kyivstar network. As of now, it is known that the personal data of subscribers has not been compromised. At the moment, the operator's specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of the hacker attack to restore communication and services as soon as possible.

At the same time, the Press Service and the National Police denied the information spread by the network about the reported searches in the company. "Kyivstar" promises to provide compensation to users who had no connection or couldn't use the services.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs is currently offering assistance to citizens affected by the large-scale failure of Kyivstar.

"If you need urgent help - to contact your relatives or call emergency services - contact the nearest police department or fire and rescue unit," Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote.

He added that it is possible to ask for help from the National Guard, police and border guards. There is a possibility to use Wi-Fi at stations of Invincibility.

The National Roaming service could return the connection, but Kyivstar users cannot switch to other operators as a result of the ongoing failure, as stated in the Press Service of the Ministry of digitization.

"National roaming doesn't work due to the fact that the network of "Kyivstar" can't transfer information about its users to the networks of other operators as a result of a general technical failure", - stated in the message.

If national roaming becomes available it'll be possible to switch to the network of another operator.

To do so, you need to:

turn off auto network selection (on Android: Settings - Mobile network (or Connection) - Operator, on iOS: Settings - Cellular data - Network selection);

find and select the available network: Vodafone UA, UA-KYIVSTAR or LIFECELL;

if registration failed, try again or select another network;

check the possibility of outgoing call, SMS.

The Speaker of "PrivatBank" said that the failure of "Kyivstar" will partially affect the work of some terminals and ATMs.

"Some banks, ATMs and POS-terminals work with the mobile cards. This problem affects the work of terminals that work on Kyivstar cards", - he noted, emphasizing that you should carry cash.

In addition, because of the failure of Kyivstar:

- some security systems do not work;

- there are problems with the payment for tickets and the work of "hotlines";

- many stores and establishments in Kyiv cannot accept non-cash payments due to problems with terminals