On 30th March 2007 in the town of Velikiye Luki, Pskov Oblast, a ceremony of closing the last crossbar office of OJSC N.W.Telecom's Pskov Branch city telephone network was held. From that moment, the entire telephone network of OJSC N.W.Telecom in Pskov Oblast has been switched to digital equipment.

The following persons took part in the ceremony of closing the last crossbar office of the Pskov Branch city telephone network that was held in the Velikiye Luki engineering line section: Alexandr Kurenkov – Chairman of the Property Relations Committee of Pskov Oblast, Vladimir Alexeyev – Deputy Mayor of Velikiye Luki, Viktor Plyachenko – Regional Director of the Pskov Branch of OJSC N.W.Telecom, members of the directorate of the Pskov Branch, major corporate clients of the branch, as well as workers of the Velikiye Luki engineering line section and journalists.  

In the framework of the official closing ceremony, a direct video conference was held with St. Petersburg, where a meeting of the Company's Board of Directors was taking place in OJSC N.W.Telecom's conference hall.

Thanks to the up-to-date video communication technologies, all those attending the ceremony in Velikiye Luki were greeted from the "Northern Capital" and received congratulations upon the remarkable event by Alexandr Kiselyov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC N.W.Telecom – General Manager of  OJSC Svyazinvest, and Vladimir Akulich, General Manager of OJSC N.W.Telecom.

Alexandr Kiselyov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC N.W.Telecom, noted in his address: "It is very pleasant that Svyazinvest includes such a company as North-West Telecom, which marches in step with time and is in the vanguard of our holding company.  And today I wish the entire N.W.Telecom and the Pskov Branch in particular to keep pace. For it is thanks to such event as today that the Svyazinvest group of companies has been able to ensure the high loyalty of its subscribers, both retaining its positions in the fixed communication sector and significantly increasing its share in the market of new services." 

General Manager of OJSC N.W.Telecom Vladimir Akulich congratulated all those present and stressed that his congratulation was "not only upon the closure – though, it was, of course, a most important step in communication development in the oblast and region, but also upon the fact that it was the first case of closing the last crossbar office in the North-West – today Pskov Oblast is the first in the Northwestern region to switch over to fully digital communication quality in the city telephone network."  

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The ATS-5 crossbar office in Velikiye Luki was put into operation on 30th March 1983 and provided automatic telephone communication to 10,000 subscribers for 24 years. 

Subscribers from three crossbar offices (ATS-5, ATS-6 and ATS-9) of Velikiye Luki, the second largest town of Pskov Oblast, will be switched over to a new digital telephone exchange of the Alcatel company.

As a result of equipment replacement and upgrading of the line facilities of the city telephone network in Velikiye Luki, over 13,000 subscribers living in the coverage area of the new  telephone exchange will be provided with up-to-date high-quality digital telephony and extra services (call forwarding, teleconferencing, new call notification, repeated call without dialing, automatic redial, abbreviated dialing, etc.), and will be enabled to get connected to the broadband access to the Internet using the ADSL technology under the Avangard Trademark. Over 2,000 subscribers of  shared lines will be provided with individual connection solutions.  The residents and enterprises of Velikiye Luki, who are not yet subscribers of OJSC N.W.Telecom will get an opportunity to install a telephone set and to receive the full range of telecommunications services, including Internet access.