August 24, 2010, Moscow: COMSTAR – United TeleSystems (COMSTAR-UTS, LSE: CMST), a leading provider of integrated telecom services in Russia and the CIS, reports that in the first half-year of 2010 the number of COMSTAR-FON access points in Russia and the CIS increased 5 times and reached 10,000.

COMSTAR-FON is a Russian segment of the global Wi-Fi community called FON that comprises about 2 million Internet users all over the world. All FON members can share each other’s Wi-Fi connections for free.

In the end of 2008, COMSTAR-UTS together with FON Wireless Limited launched a Wi-Fi-enabled wireless broadband service for subscribers of STREAM, a major ISP in Moscow. Soon, the service will also be available to users of Internet from MGTS that can be able to enjoy it through modems with FON feature integrated.
Today, FON has about 2 million access points around the world.

In the nearest future, COMSTAR-UTS is going to provide guest Internet access via COMSTAR-FON to Moscow users who are not the community members. To get access you will need to send an SMS with a request for a login and password.

“We are actively developing the service and work with both existing and potential subscribers. It is safe to say that COMSTAR-FON is one of the biggest Wi-Fi networks in Moscow now. The service is becoming more and more popular. We intend to significantly increase the network activity by attracting users who doesn’t have FON access points. They will be able to pay for access by sending an SMS. Also, we have other projects to develop this service as part of integration with MTS,” Maxim Chernov, Marketing Director of COMSTAR-UTS, says.

Evgeny Koryagin, Head of FON Wireless in Russia, adds: “The presence in the MTS Group convergent products is a good opportunity for us to address its multi-million subscriber base and make a big step towards coverage expansion. On the other hand, an upcoming commercial launch of the network with a paid access provided to non-members of the community will raise the project to a new level and will become another confirmation of its high potential.”

To become a FON user and arrange an access point (hotspot) in Moscow you need just to take on lease the Fonera Stone Wi-Fi router or ZTE ZXV10 W300 ADSL modem with the FON feature and register it at www.fon.com. Then you will be able to use active FON hotspots all over the world. Besides the above devices, a convergent COMSTAR and MTS product, a Universal Router, will soon be available to connect to COMSTAR-FON.

More details on COMSTAR-FON and a map of the active hotspots you can find at https://www.fon.comstar.ru/.