MOSCOW, April 12 (Prime-Tass) -- The management board of Russia's regional fixed-line operator VolgaTelecom is expected consider by the end of April a plan to merge the company?s mobile communications subsidiaries, VolgaTelecom's PR department Director Tatyana Zotova said in an interview with Prime-Tass on Wednesday.
The board of directors of VolgaTelecom decided on March 15 to merge the mobile assets into Nizhegorodskaya Sotovaya Svyaz, or NSS, mobile operator.
Meanwhile, NSS said in a statement Wednesday that it has held a re-branding campaign of its prepaid contracts sold under the brand City.
The brand?s advertising slogan was changed to "You have the City - you have everything" from "Simpler than simple" (Proshche prostogo).
After the re-branding, the company will charge subscribers to the tariff plan 1.75 rubles per minute for all local outgoing calls and incoming calls from fixed-line numbers and 0.49 rubles for each SMS within the company?s network, the company said.
NSS is VolgaTelecom's key mobile subsidiary with over 1.1 million users as of March 31, according to Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M). Over 800,000 NSS subscribers are signed up to the City tariff plan, NSS said.
VolgaTelecom has stakes in eight mobile operators, namely, 100% in NSS, or Nizhny Novgorod Cellular Communications; 100% in Mordovia?s RTKOM; 60% in Ulyanovsk GSM; 51% in Orenburg GSM; 50% plus one share in Tatincom-T, based in Tatarstan; 50% in Saratov Mobile; 40% in Penza Mobile; and 30% in Chuvashia Mobile. In the constituent republic of Mari El VolgaTelecom provides mobile services through its branch in the republic.
The consolidated mobile subscriber base of VolgaTelecom rose 70.4% in 2005 to 1.89 million users as of January 1.
(27.6797 rubles - U.S. $1)
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Posted to the site on 12th April 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/16957.php