On the New Year eve, N.W.Telecom offers marketing and advertising actions all over Russia’s North-West to promote its broadband Internet access services. 

In St. Petersburg, the “Avangard Bringing You Gifts!” action will last from December 1 till 31, 2008, where every 100th, 501st, 1001st, 2001st, 2501st, 8001st and 10001st subscriber connecting to the Avangard service for a period of six or 12 months will receive a valuable gift from N.W.Telecom. Among the gifts are TV sets, notebooks, photo cameras, and touring vouchers to Egypt.

Besides, the “Avant-garde technology” lottery action will take place in Sat. Petersburg’s universities and largest shopping centers from December 2 till 30. In 10 colleges of the city, promo floors will be opened from December 1 till 15, where students may learn about the Avangard service and sign an agreement for its connection. Everyone interested in Avangard may try and draw prizes*, receiving a raffle ticket from N.W.Telecom representatives . From December 6 till 14, at weekends (12:00 till 15:00) similar promo actions will take place in shopping/entertainment centers of St. Petersburg: June, Gulliver, Sennaya, PIK, Rodeo Drive, City Mall, Mega Dybenko, and Mega Parnas.

Other regions of the North-Western Federal District will also see actions to attract new broadband access users. For instance, in Archangel, Vologda, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, and Novgorod Oblasts, N.W.Telecom’s “Fourth Not One Too Many” action started on December 1. During the action, everyone connecting the Avangard service will be granted one month of Internet access free of charge, subject to the use of the service for the first three months (no fee is taken for the 4th month of use of the Avangard service.) In Leningrad Oblast and the Republic of Komi, all subscribers connected to the Avangard service between December 1 and 31 will get Internet access at the rate of 2009 Kbit/s (in Komi branch, only the 660 Kbit/s rate will be increased) for one months from the date of connection. In the Republic of Karelia, a new high-speed Avangard tariff line is introduced on the New Year eve; now, 2 Mbit/s cost from RUR 450/months upward. In Pskov Oblast, the connection fee for all no-limit tariff plans of the Avangard will be reduced to 1 ruble (but for the modem.)

North-West Telecom continuously improves its broadband Internet access service. For maximum satisfaction of its subscribers, the Company extends its tariff plan lines in all regions of the NWFD and increases the Internet access bit rates. For instance, in 2006 when the Avangard service was first launched on the market in St. Petersburg, the maximum access bit rate was 256 Kbit/s. Two years later, the rate was more than 10 times higher, so today the subscribers of N.W.Telecom St. Petersburg Branch may connect to the Forsage tariff plan at the 4 Mbit/s access rate and for a fee of up from RUR 270/month upward. Currently, N.W.Telecom offers when signing fixed-term agreements for the Avangard service (for 6 and 12 months) are the most attractive on St. Petersburg’s market. 

Noted Oleg V. Popov, Associate General Manager and Commercial Manager of N.W.Telecom, “For us, the year 2008 was a year of new technologies and marketing initiatives. North-West Telecom was successfully promoting its broadband Internet access services on the basis of the ADSL technology under the trademarks Avangard and AlliancePRO, and introduced new tariffs and package offers. As a result, we managed to overcome a very important milestone barrier: in late November 2008, the 500,000th user of the Avangard service was connected. Besides, last year we started providing PON-based (passive optical net work) Triple Play services, and the New Telephony service on the basis of the Softswitch equipment in St. Petersburg. As to the IP TV service, it made its first step to a region outside St. Petersburg – we started its full-scale providing in Novgorod Oblast. Next year, we will continue active work for our customer’s benefit, giving more and more attention to up-to-date technologies and services. My best wishes for a Happy New Year to all our subscribers and potential customers! We will be happy to see you among our subscribers!”

Also on the New Year eve, N.W.Telecom offers the following actions jointly with Intel:

- Avangard+PC, under which, N.W.Telecom subscribers may get connected to the Avangard service at special tariffs and buy a mini notebook (netbook) on installment (valid all over the North-Western Federal District);

- Gift Certificates, under which, any buyer buying a computer with an Intel® Ñore™ 2 Quad processor in Key and Computer World shops gets a certificate for 500 rubles to be added to the N.W.Telecom subscriber’s personal account, provided that such buyer connects to the Avangard service before January 31, 2009 (in St. Petersburg, Archangel Oblast, Vologda Oblast, Leningrad Oblast, Novgorod Oblast, Pskov Oblast, and Republic of Karelia.)

For detailed information on tariffs and services, and on advertising and marketing actions of N.W.Telecom, contact the information/enquiry services of the Company’s branches, or visit the regional branch websites and the product websites www.avangard-dsl.ru and www.aliance-pro.ru

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* To check your raffle ticket, visit the website www.avangard-dsl.ru and check your ticket No. against the prize numbers list. If the raffle ticket No. is a prize number, the player will get the prize (a computer mouse) at the prize handing center at the indicated address. And if the raffle ticket No. is the number of the super prize (a notebook), you will have to present the agreement signed during the action period to receive the prize (and if the subscriber is already a user of the Avangard service, to renegotiate the agreement to a fixed-term one, for six or 12 months.)