Unexpected roaming bills, connecting to Belarusian mobile networks and, in some places, a complete lack of mobile coverage – this is everyday life for residents in the border regions. Although many have already got used to the presence of the neighbouring country’s networks, the quality of mobile communications in Latvia continues to cause difficulties, Latgale regional television reports.
Viktors Piļščikovs, owner of the “Klajumi” horse farm, paid just under 20 euros for connecting to the Belarusian mobile network, even though he had not crossed the national border. Coverage problems on his farm even interfere with the operation of his CCTV cameras.
At “Klajumi”, where tourists are offered horse rides along the Daugava River bends and accommodation in holiday cottages, guests also encounter unexpected connections to Belarusian networks. The owners have got used to it, but for visitors it remains a surprise.
“During tours, I’ve heard people suddenly exclaim, ‘Ooo, the Belarusians connected to me. I'd rather the Belarusians connect to our masts than for us to connect to theirs,” said Ilze Stabulniece, owner of the “Klajumi” horse farm.
Mobile network operator “Bite” has received around 75 customer complaints over the past six months regarding automatic connection to foreign networks whilst in Latvia.
“If we establish that additional costs have arisen independently of the customer’s wishes and in circumstances where the device has automatically connected to a foreign network, the customer is granted appropriate compensation. The average amount compensated in such cases over the last six months was around 12 euros,” explained Aleksandrs Beļajevs, Head of the Radio Network Department at Bite Latvia.
For owners of ‘Klajumi’, the problem is not just the foreign network. Due to dead spots, the farm’s surveillance cameras often lose their internet connection. Viktors says that network coverage has only got worse over the past year.
“If it happened once or twice, or even five times, that would be fine, but we face this every day, especially in the evening. During the day it’s still more or less okay, but in the evening the network speed and coverage drop significantly,” observes the owner of the “Klajumi” horse farm.
The Krāslava Municipal Council acknowledges that locals in the border area have become accustomed to communication problems, with signals from Belarusian operators outperforming domestic networks in certain border areas where Latvian mobile coverage is weak, whilst in some places there is no coverage at all.
“To be honest, it’s a dead zone. In some places there’s no signal at all, and you end up connecting to Belarus,” admitted Gunārs Upenieks (ZZS), Chair of the Krāslava District Council. “When we didn’t have electricity either, you could drive along the border and hear Belarusians saying: ‘B Латвии нет электричества, v Латвии нет электричества!’ (There’s no electricity in Latvia, there’s no electricity in Latvia! – ed.).”
“Tele2” explains that the transmission power of base stations in the border area is limited by cross-border frequency coordination requirements. Meanwhile, operators do not always have sufficient resources to build new masts.
“With regard to the border region, we have approached both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence with a proposal to allow the use of state-owned infrastructure for the construction of new telecoms facilities,” explained Ilze Saulīte, LMT's customer service director.
Whilst solutions to improve mobile coverage in the border region are still being sought, residents themselves must be wary of unexpected costs. The operators’ recommendation is to manually select the Latvian mobile network on your phone.
Seen a mistake?
Select text and press Ctrl+Enter to send a suggested correction to the editor
Select text and press Report a mistake to send a suggested correction to the editor