On 11th May 2006 OJSC North-West Telecom decommissioned the last decade-step telephone exchange, ATS No. 262-267 Shchemilovskaya, that had served for over 40 years the subscribers of the St. Petersburg telephone network.

Chairman of the Informatization and Communications Committee of St. Petersburg Yevgeny Tsivirko, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC NWT Valery Yashin, General Manager of OJSC NWT Vladimir Akulich, Regional Director of the St. Petersburg Branch of OJSC NWT Leonid Tufrin, the top management of the company, as well as workers of Shchemilovskaya telephone exchange and representatives of mass media took part in the ceremony of shutting down the telephone exchange.

Commenting on the event, Vladimir Akulich, General Manager of OJSC NWT, noted: 'We have witnessed a very important event today, both for North-West Telecom and for St. Petersburg. With the withdrawal of the old technology of decade-step telephone exchanges, a whole epoch has finished. Summing up the results of this important stage in the development of the city's telephone network, we are starting the next stage – decommissioning of crossbar offices, investing over 50% of the total volume of company's investment in the development of the telecommunications infrastructure of St. Petersburg in 2006.'

Chairman of the Informatization and Communications Committee of St. Petersburg Yevgeny Tsivirko emphasized the importance and scale of the work done by NWT, both from the engineering and social standpoint, having reminded the audience that North-West Telecom has been a reliable partner of the Government of St. Petersburg for a long time. 'NWT is implementing in a balanced and systematic way the Programme for Provision of Telecommunication Services to the Residents of the City for 2005-2007 approved by the Ministry of Informatization and Communications of Russia and by the Government of St. Petersburg. And the closure of the last decade-step telephone exchange is the result of successful implementation of the Programme and a significant event for the city,' he said.

To finish the ceremony, its participants were shown a new electronic 362-367 index telephone exchange installed instead of the decade-step exchange. The up-to-date digital exchange has made it possible to deblock over 2,800 shared telephone lines, eliminate the queue for telephone installation within the exchange's zone and to improve the quality of communication services provided to the subscribers of the St. Petersburg branch of OJSC North-West Telecom. 18,000 switched-over subscribers living in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg will be able to use extra types of servicing, such as call forwarding, teleconferencing, notification of a new call, repeated call without dialing, automatic redialing, abbreviated dialing, many other services, as well as broadband access to the Internet using the ADSL technology. 

For the first three months of 2006 NWT switched over to digital equipment the St. Petersburg decade-step telephone exchanges ATS-245 Flyugovskaya, ATS-247 Tikhoretskaya, ATS-318-7 Drovyanaya, crossbar ATS-538 Grazhdanskaya 1 with the total line capacity of 29,000 and put into operation 7,000 new lines in the city, having increased the installed line capacity of the St. Petersburg branch to 2,200,000 lines. 

In 2006 the development of the municipal telephone network is one of the key investment projects of OJSC NWT in the Northwestern Federal District, for which up to 35% of the total volume of investment will be allocated. The project implies expansion of the subscriber base, cooperation with construction companies in the field of provision of telephone communication for new housing, and digitalization of inter-exchange connections of the city telephone network of St. Petersburg for routing of a large volume of high-speed traffic generated by broadband access services.