13 January 2009, Moscow, Orenburg. COMSTAR – United TeleSystems (COMSTAR-UTS OJSC, LSE: CMST), a major operator of integrated telecommunications services in Russia and the CIS, announces the obtaining by RTC-Orenburg Branch (of Regional Technical Center OJSC (RTC), a COMSTAR-UTS’ subsidiary company) of a license from the Federal Supervision Service for Communications (FSSC) and bringing of a fixed-line telephone zonal communications network in commercial service in the Orenburg region.

The FSSC License for operation of the regional area network facilities was issued to RTC on 30 December 2008. The operator has already commenced provision of intra-zonal telephone communications services to the subscribers, both individuals and entities, across the Orenburg region.

The RTC-Orenburg RAN, with its installed capacity of 74 E1 ports, is based on the Nokia Siemens Networks-built equipment (hardware/software complex, access media gateways and subscriber access devices.) The operator has installed POIs to the fixed-line zonal telephone communications network in 33 municipal districts and towns of the Orenburg region.

“Our Company is heavily involved in advancing zonal communications line of business as part of deployment of a multi-service telecommunications network across the Orenburg region,” noted Dmitry Nikiforov, RTC-Orenburg Branch Director. The RANs play pivotal role in building modern telephone networks that act as an interface between the local, DLD, ILD and cellular networks. The status of an intra-zonal communications operator will allow the Branch to perform efficiently both in the inter-operator segment and on the end user market. This will make it possible for us to use our own networks in a more effective way and provide to the customer a comprehensive suite of telecom services and the ability to pay for them by a unified invoice.”

Today, there are about 300 companies from among the corporate customers in the Orenburg region, including Orenburgneft OJSC, The Orenburg Drilling Company, TNK-BP Management OJSC, TNK-BP Orenburg, Orenburgneftegeophysica LLC and others, which make use of intra-zonal telephone communications services provided by the RTC-Orenburg Branch.

With the launch of the RAN in the Orenburg region, COMSTAR-UTS has implemented a multi-service telecom operator model. The Company provides the services, such as local telephony, as well as LD communications to residential and corporate customers in the region as COMSTAR-UTS’ agent. In addition, using its own DN, the RTC provides to its users ADSL2+ and Ethernet technologies-based broadband Internet access service, in particular, under the unlimited tariff plans.

For more details on the RTC-Orenburg Branch’s activities please visit web-page:  https://www.orenburg.comstar.ru.