Comstar Launches IP TV Service In Ukraine

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

MOSCOW — COMSTAR – United TeleSystems JSC (COMSTAR-UTS, LSE: CMST), the leading supplier of integrated telecommunication solutions in Russia and the CIS, announces that COMSTAR-Ukraine Ltd, a member of COMSTAR-UTS group, is the first to have launched an interactive digital TV (IP-TV) service in Odessa.

COMSTAR-Ukraine provides IP-TV service based on its own multi-service fiber-optical data transmission next generation network (NGN), using IPSoft iVision software platform developed by Netris, Russia. Now COMSTAR-Ukraine broadband Internet subscribers in Odessa receive a digital-format package of more than 60 basic channels broadcast over the air, with thematic TV channels. In future, the company plans to increase the number of broadcast channels to as many as 90, and launch VoD service along with other interactive services.

Before the end of 2008 COMSTAR-Ukraine plans to launch IP-TV service in Kiev.

According to COMSTAR-UTS infrastructure development network plans for the Ukraine, the company will upgrade its backbone transportation network and integrate the existing metro networks in Kiev and Odessa, with a perspective to implement similar innovations in other cities. As a result, the operator will be able to provide individuals with a set of state-of-the-art triple play telecom services (voice, data and video) on a nation-wide basis, rendering a wide range of telecom services for corporative clients, such as telephony, broadband Internet, virtual private networks (VPN), etc.

Victor Koresh, Regional Development Vice President of COMSTAR-UTS, said: “Ukraine telecom is a priority market outside Russia for COMSTAR-UTS group. It has a great potential in terms of user readiness to subscribe to new multimedia-based services”.

Vladimir Petrov, CEO of COMSTAR-Ukraine, added: “Given an acute demand for such services, the launch of IP-TV in Odessa is an important step towards large-scale triple play package service introduction. While the country IP-TV market is being shaped, COMSTAR has a competitive advantage providing its subscribers with a full set of services available from a single operator”.