December 24 2008, Moscow, Rostov-na-Donu: Comstar – United TeleSystems (COMSTAR-UTS JSC, LSE: CMST), the leading supplier of integrated telecommunication solutions in Russia and the CIS, announces that Digital Telephone Networks South (DTN), the leading alternative operator in the Southern Federal District of the Russian Federation, member of COMSTAR-UTS, has increased the speed of access to external Internet resources up to 1 Gbps, i.e. fourfold.

The company has also enhanced the capacity for transport Internet channels between Rostov-na-Donu and Taganrog (from 8 Mbps up to 1 Gbps), Azov (from 4 Mbps up to 16 Mbps ), and the Northern part of the region (from 2 Mbps up to 24 Mbps).

The significant increase in COMSTAR-UTS broadband network capacity in the Rostov Region is the result of engineering measures to upgrade telecommunication infrastructure that DTN took in 2008. DTN has replaced backbone routers and has increased the number of routers in network core. New routers by Cisco are installed on two large nodes of transmission network core, at the points of backbone connections. External Internet channel has been split into two connections to optimize network load. In addition, DTN has enhanced the backbone for transmission network core in Rostov up to 2 Gbps while transport channel Rostov-Taganrog has been completely upgraded to fiber-optics.

Mikhail Monastyrsky, Director of Digital Telephone Networks South, says, “The upgrades enabled DTN to significantly increase network performance. Today DTN is the only alternative operator in the region that has its own external Internet channel of such capacity – 1 Gbps. This allows transmission of large volumes of data, so, as the demand for broadband services is growing, we can provide our users with high-speed Internet, IPTV and other multimedia services, including those implemented under joint projects. We intend to further enhance network capacity and have already launched corresponding activities.”

For example, since December 1 2008 under partner agreement with Yandex any individual broadband Internet subscriber of DTN that uses Jet or Jet Night rate plans can access all Yandex resources (search engine, e-mail, photo and video hosting, news, transport schedule, TV guide, satellite maps, blogs, dictionaries, etc.) at a reduced rate. An additional transmission channel between DTN and Yandex has been dedicated for this purpose.

Recall that in September 2008 COMSTAR-UTS doubled the speed for unlimited Internet for its individual subscribers in Rostov-na-Donu and Taganrog.