Moscow, Russia – July 28, 2010 – “COMSTAR – United TeleSystems” JSC (“Comstar” or “the Group”) (LSE: CMST), the largest integrated telecommunications provider in Moscow and 82 Russian cities, today announced that the number of subscribers of Moscow City Telephone Network (“MGTS”), a Comstar subsidiary, utilizing Comstar for domestic long distance and international long distance (DLD/ILD) connections services on a permanent basis in pre-select mode, has exceeded one millionin July 2010.

Comstar-UTS started offering DLD/ILD connections services to MGTS subscribers in December 2008. Since that time, more than one million of Moscow residents have chosen Comstar as their permanent long-distance operator, with approximately 150 thousand further residents using Comstar services in the ‘hot-choice mode’ on a monthly basis by dialling the 23 and 28 codes before each call. 

The total number of MGTS residential subscribers amounts to 3.6 million, out of which 28% are also customers of Comstar DLD/ILD connections services, and the number of MGTS subscribers using Comstar services in pre-select mode has nearly tripled from the beginning of 2010.

Alexey Goncharuk, First Vice President of Comstar, commented: “Comstar is the fourth largest operator of DLD/ILD services in the telecommunications market in Russia and the second largest in Moscow, according to analyst research[1]. Our goal is to continuously increase our market share, enhance our subscriber base by offering favourable tariffs plans and to launch convergent projects. We also plan to introduce single billing for all telecommunications services to the Group’s regional subscribers, which we have already implemented in Moscow. Furthermore, we intend to expand our range of pre-paid card services, which will be made available in MTS retail chain.

[1] Research company Direct INFO data