March 2, 2010, Moscow: COMSTAR – United TeleSystems (COMSTAR-UTS, LSE: CMST), the leading operator of integrated telecommunication services in Russia and the CIS, announces that COMSTAR-UTS and Ukrainian Mobile Communications, a subsidiary of Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), have signed a network interconnection and telecom service agreement.

Under the agreement, the operators will provide each other international traffic passing and termination services in communications networks. The agreement sets organizational, technical and economic provisions in relation to mutual traffic passing. Earlier COMSTAR-UTS was affiliated with a subsidiary of COMSTAR-Ukraine, and this network part was integrated into the common long-distance network of COMSTAR-UTS Group.

Within the framework of this cooperation special attention will be paid to the quality of voice transmission. One of the major qualitative characteristics for a mobile operator is e.g. correct transmission of the calling subscriber number. With this aim in view both companies will implement regular service quality control programs.

Under this agreement the parties will provide each other with traffic forecasts for various voice transmission directions.

“The Ukrainian direction is the most highly sought traffic route for us, and the beginning of cooperation with Ukrainian Mobile Communications, one of the leading Ukrainian operators, is an important stage of long-distance communication services development,” Alexey Goncharuk, Senior Vice-President of COMSTAR-UTS, says. “This agreement is also important for the development of integration projects with our shareholder, Mobile TeleSystems, the more so as it is further planned to integrate long-distance communication networks of both operators.”

“CIS countries and especially Russia are the most popular direction of international calls among the Ukrainians. Direct interconnection of networks of COMSTAR-UTS and MTS made it possible to improve the quality of communication due to direct traffic transmission between networks without any intermediaries, and also to improve service provision conditions for the subscribers,” Vasil Latsanich, Marketing Director of MTS-Ukraine, says.