In mid-June, OJSC NWT completed the second stage of the project for the introduction of multipurpose telephone services with the use of payphones in the Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad, Leningrad, Murmansk and Novgorod Regions, Republic of Karelia and Republic of Komi.

According to the contest conditions ( see the Press Release of December 29, 2007 ), from January to June 2008 inclusive the NWT staff installed 4,021 multipurpose payphones in these Regions, namely:

- in the Arkhangelsk Region, 491 payphones;

- in the Kaliningrad Region, 527 payphones;

- in the Murmansk Region, 12 payphones;

- in the Leningrad Region, 1235 payphones;

- in the Novgorod Region, 1497 payphones;

- in the Republic of Komi, 141 payphones;

- in the Republic of Karelia, 118 payphones.

By the end of 2008, NWT will complete the 2nd stage of the program for the introduction of multipurpose telephone services with the use of payphones in the Vologda Region, where 3006 payphones will be installed, and in the Pskov Region, where 4109 payphones will be installed. In total, over 12.5 thousand payphones will be installed in 9 Regions of the North-West Federal District in 2008.

According to General Manager of NWT V.A. Akulich, “the key objective of the program for the introduction of multipurpose services is to ensure the universal and equal access to the basic set of telecommunications services for all citizens. In 2006-2008, NWT will install over 25 multipurpose payphones in urban and rural communities of the North-West Federal District, including those where no telephone facilities were available. This very expensive and labor-intensive project will cost the Company approximately more than 6.6 billion rubles in 2006-2008. Yet, investments and revenues are not the only measurements of its efficiency. The social value of this program is difficult to measure. It consists of the emergency calls from remote areas where no cellular telephone service is available, of contacts with the close relatives who can call at a village payphone etc. Further to that, while installing payphones in the remotest areas of the North-West Federal District NWT carries out a serious modernization of its network to improve the service quality”.

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The specifically designed multipurpose payphones may be used for making local, intra-zonal (also at the called subscriber’s expense), intercity and international calls, calling emergency services free of charge, answering an incoming call, obtaining information.

The multipurpose payphone services are paid by 50- and 100-ruble (5000- and 10000-tariff unit) uniform cards available from NWT’s sales and customer service offices and post offices (FSUE Post of Russia). No payphone card is required for making emergency calls, answering an incoming call and obtaining information, including details of the multipurpose service.

The tariffs for local telephone connections by multipurpose payphones are fixed by the Russian Federal Communications Agency at 34 to 55 kopecks per minute, depending on the Region within the North-West Federal District. A minute of intra-zonal communication (telephone connection within a Region or Republic) costs from 2.25 to 2.50 rubles. The inter-city and international communications services are provided at the long-distance communications operators’ tariffs.