SMARTS Says Won't Introduce Connection Fee

MOSCOW, Aug 1 (Prime-Tass) -- Russian regional mobile operator SMARTS does not plan to introduce connection fee for outgoing calls, the company said in a press release Tuesday.

SMARTS plans to compensate its losses following the introduction of the Calling Party Pays (CPP) principle in Russia through attracting new subscribers, the operator said, adding that 500,000 new users would be enough to completely compensate the losses.

SMARTS also announced two changes in its tariff policies. SMARTS moved several tariff plans from per-second billing starting the first minute to per-second billing starting the second minute of call and allowed all its subscribers to receive SMS and calls even if the user's balance is zero, the company said.

Following the CPP introduction in Russia on July 1, Russia's three largest mobile operators - MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon - announced their plans to introduce additional connection fees for outgoing calls in August.

SMARTS, or Middle-Volga Interregional Association of Radio and Telecommunication Systems, operates a GSM 900/1800 standard network in 16 Russian regions, where 33.9 million people live, or 24% of the Russian population. SMARTS? total subscriber base was at 3.293 million users as of June 30, according to Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M).

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Posted to the site on 1st August 2006