From September 1, 2010, North-West Telecom offers the Avangard service subscribers in the regions of the North-Western Federal District* a new included-time tariff plan based on the “Pay As You Go”** service and known as Avangard-Time.

In St. Petersburg, a similar tariff plan has already been available for N.W.Telecom users since June 1, 2010.

The Avangard-Time tariff plan became possible due to implementation of the “Pay As You Go” function, i.e. “time-based tariffing”, on the basis of the Juniper Networks SDX-300 service management system, which allows providing a broad range of IP services to N.W.Telecom users all over NWFD.

The new tariff plan includes 900 minutes of access to the Internet, the monthly charge being 250 rubles*** at the bit rate of 500 Kbit/s to 4 Mbit/s (depending on the technical feasibility to provide the service in each particular region of NWFD.) The Internet access above the included time is charged per minute at the rate of 30 kopecks per minute*** (each incomplete minute is metered as a full one.)

With the Avangard-Time tariff plan, the subscriber controls activation and deactivation of Internet access, and duration of the use of the service independently, with the aid of the Personal Office service in the “Internet Access Management” section.

Comments Oleg Popov, Deputy CEO and Commercial Director of N.W.Telecom: “We made the use of this tariff plan as comfortable as possible for our customers, enabling them to control their expenses on their own. For instance, a user may limit the duration of connection to the web, selecting the desired value in minutes; the service will then be automatically stopped on the expiry of the preset time. Or, by specifying the “maximum time” value, you may set the duration of your work in the Internet on your own, using the “Stop” button to disable access.”

Without the service activation and tariffing, the subscribers using BBA with the Avangard-Time tariff plan will get unlimited access to the websites of N.W.Telecom, Avangard extra services, and intra-network exchange within the framework of the Local Network service.

The price of the service provided (subscriber fee and charge for extra time used in excess of 900 minutes) is included in the overall bill for the N.W.Telecom communication services. You may switch over from the current tariff plans to the Avangard Time tariff from the beginning of a new calendar month.

Detailed information on the Avangard broadband Internet access service, effective charge rates, extra services, and special offers is available on the product website www.avangard-dsl.ru, at any sale or service point for N.W.Telecom customers, or by contacting the Company using the N.W.Telecom free hot line phone 8-118-00 (the phone No. in Petersburg is 057.)

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The Juniper Networks SDX-300 service management system developed for service providers is an easily scalable, functional, and mobile system enabling fast and easy generation, activation, and management of services for hundreds of thousands of users irrespective of their connection version. Without prejudice to the network security, SDX-300 activates only the services and resources needed by the user, automatically reporting their use.

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* Except for Vologda Oblast where this tariff will be implemented later, and St. Petersburg where it is already effective.

** “Pay As You Go” enables metering and tariffing of the use of the Internet access service in terms of time rather than bit rate or traffic.

*** In Kaliningrad Branch of N.W.Telecom, the monthly user charge for Avangard subscribers connected by the PON technology is RUR350. In St. Petersburg, the user charge is RUR195 irrespective of the BBA service provision method, the per minute rate being 25 kopecks above the included value.