Sky Link Launches Cell Network in Ryazan Region

MOSCOW, Dec 19 (Prime-Tass) -- Russian CDMA operator Sky Link has launched a mobile network in the Ryazan Region, the company?s press office said Tuesday.

The network has seven base stations and covers Ryazan and the towns of Rybnoye and Kasimov. The network?s capacity is 10,000 numbers. Sky Link plans to have 18 base stations by mid-2007.

Local operator Ryazanskaya Sotovaya Svyaz, or Ryazan Cellular Communication, offers services under the Sky Link brand name in the region.

All tariff plans are set in rubles.

Sky Link operates in the IMT-MC-450 standard, or CDMA 450. The company had 305,000 users as of January 1 and said it hoped to increase that number to about 490,000 by the end of the year. The company has licenses that cover 65 of Russia?s 88 regions where 104 million people, or 72% of Russia?s total population, reside.

Major Russian holding AFK Sistema holds a 50% stake in Sky Link.

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Posted to the site on 19th December 2006