January 14, 2009, Moscow. COMSTAR – United TeleSystems (COMSTAR-UTS, LSE: CMST), the leading supplier of integrated telecommunication solutions in Russia and the CIS, has summarized statistics of telephone calls made on the New Year’s Eve in Moscow using the COMSTAR-UTS intercity and international communication network.

One the New Year’s Eve and the following day, from December 31, 2009 to January 1, 2010, a number of calls made by Moscovites (subscribers of MGTS, affiliate of COMSTAR-UTS) who use long-distance communication services provided by COMSTAR-UTS grew by more than fourfold as compared to the average number of calls in December and amounted to more than 1 million. At the same time, subscribers’ traffic doubled over this period as compared to a regular day and amounted to 1.8 million minutes. A number of unique numbers of MGTS subscribers who used COMSTAR-UTS intercity and international communication services during the week of New Year celebrations (from December 28, 2009 to January 3, 2010) accrued 47%, having reached 907,000.

Most calls by MGTS subscribers who use COMSTAR-UTS intercity and international communication services were made from midnight to 2 a.m. on January 1. Traditionally popular countries are Ukraine, Byelorussia and Eastern European states.

“Quality is what really matters to subscribers of intercity and international communication services, both on the New Year’s Eve and any other time, since they speak to friends or relatives who may sometimes be at the other end of the world! That is why we constantly work to improve the service quality. Besides, subscribers are attracted by our tariffs, a possibility to get a service bundled with local telephony and Internet access and a possibility to pay using the single payment document of MGTS. Statistics confirm increased popularity of the service: overall, in Russia, long-distance communication traffic on the COMSTAR-UTS own network accrued 50% in quarter 2 of 2009 as compared to the first quarter of 2009, while in the third quarter it accrued 59% as compared to the second one,” Alexey Goncharuk, First Vice-President of COMSTAR-UTS, says.