On 11th September a meeting took place between Murmansk Oblast Governor Yu. A. Yevdokimov and General Manager of OJSC North-West Telecom V. A.   Akulich in Murmansk . In the course of the meeting, the results of implementing the Agreement of Cooperation between   the Government of Murmansk Oblast and OJSC N.W. Telecom signed in November 2004 were discussed and the issues of infocommunications development in the region were considered.

In 2006 the volume of OJSC N.W. Telecom 's capital investment in the development of communication facilities of Murmansk Oblast amounted to 246 million roubles, which has made it possible to upgrade the telegraph network of the city of Murmansk and the Murmansk Oblast region, to install the equipment of a digital telephone exchange in the settlement of Nickel, to ensure stable communication with remote and hard-to-reach settlements of the region (the settlements of Tumanny, Teriberka, Alakurtti, Ura-Guba, Vidyayevo, Sputnik, Kilpyavr) and to put into operation the Kola-Zaozersk-Zapolyarny-Nickel fibre-optic communication line. In 2006 the installed capacity of the multiservice communication network was considerably expanded and about six thousand broadband Internet access ports were put into operation, which ensured the connection of more than 5,700 subscribers to the network.

In the framework of the priority national project " Education", OJSC North-West Telecom connected 229 schools of Murmansk Oblast to the broadband Internet for less than a year – from October 2006 till September 2007, having completed the implementation of the project on Kola Peninsula earlier than had been schedule d.

V. A.   Akulich said during the meeting that OJSC N.W. Telecom 's investment in the development of communication facilities on Kola Peninsula will amount to 507 million roubles in 2007. It is expected that all in all about 300 km of fibre-optic lines will be built and put into operation, and 15 rural analog telephone exchanges will be replaced by digital telephone exchanges with the total capacity about 3,000 numbers this year.

Introduction of universal telecommunication services is one of the priority and social ly significant areas of OJSC N.W.Telecom's activities in 2007-2008 . In December 2006 the Company was recognized the winner of the competition for the right of providing universal telephone communication services using payphone s in the territory of Murmansk Oblast . 166 universal service payphone s will be installed on Kola Peninsula by February 2008.