The Management Committee meeting of the Mediterranean Cable Maintenance Agreement (MECMA 2004) has opened in Moscow today. The meeting will last for 3 days, with Rostelecom for the first time being an organizer and host party.

The attendees, representatives of the world’s largest telecommunications companies – MECMA members, will have a number of sessions and discussions on topical cooperation issues, including further development of interaction between Maintenance Authorities and Service Providers. There will be also a special session devoted to the Mediterranean Sea cable maintenance after 2007.

MECMA 2004 is a cooperative agreement between 35 submarine cable operators for providing repair, maintenance and related services for submarine telecom cables within the Mediterranean, Black and Red Sea Area for which they are responsible. The whole length of cables under MECMA is 40,897.7094 km. The member companies include AT&T, France Telecom, Ukrtelecom, Telefonica and others.

Rostelecom participates in MECMA 2004 as an operator of the submarine cable systems as follows: fiber-optic ITUR line between Italy, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, the Novo-Sochi line (from Novorossiysk to Sochi), the Georgia-Russia line and BS FOCS (the Black Sea Fiber-Optic Cable System).

Rostelecom, as Russia’s national telecommunications operator, is constantly enhancing international partnership at various levels. As of today, the Company participates in 30 international cable systems, cooperates with 400 international operators and companies and also takes part in a number of international organizations, including a permanent membership in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as well as a membership in the Telecommunication Operators Board of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).

Building on broad international cooperation and its unique nationwide network, Rostelecom can offer the shortest and most reliable land route for considerable Europe-Asia traffic transit.