On February 20, 2004 the Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Mr. Vadim Bulavinov and General director of OJSC “VolgaTelecom” Mr. Vladimir Lyulin signed the Agreement on joint activity aimed to the development of communication facilities of Nizhny Novgorod.

The practice of such agreements is traditional for the activity of city’s administration and OJSC “VolgaTelecom”. During the past years a lot was done for telephonization of Nizhny Novgorod, for modernization of existing and construction of a new communication network by using state-of-the art technologies. Joint social projects are being successfully implemented, for example “Provision of telephone communication to the workers of back areas and widows of World War II participants”. In 2003 Nizhny Novgorod branch of OJSC “VolgaTelecom” commissioned the capacity of 101 000 lines (out of them 50 thousand lines in Nizhny Novgorod), thus installed capacity made up over 900 thousand numbers. 230 km of fiber-optic communication lines were fixed and their total length is over 1 000 km.  In Nizhny Novgorod city and its oblast there are operating about 100 centers of Internet access (half of them are located in Nizhny Novgorod), the company is realizing the project of creating inter-regional network of data transfer in Povozhje on the basis of data transfer network existing in 11 branches of OJSC “VolgaTelecom”. In 2003 OJSC “VolgaTelecom” introduced the service of cable TV to the market. Right now the city-folk of Leninskyi district can watch over 30 TV channels of digital quality of image.

This Agreement, as the parties believe, should give new impetus to the development of communication facilities in the oblast’s center. The document stipulates that OJSC “VolgaTelecom” takes upon itself to commission at least 60 thousand lines by the end of 2004, having allocated 900 million rubles for these purposes, and basically liquidate the existing waiting line for telephone installation in Nizhny Novgorod. The Administration of the city takes upon itself the obligations for prompt solution of the issues related to the ownership for land plots and premises for the communication enterprises and the accomplishment of the territory around them.

Bilateral obligations stipulate not only the development and meeting the demand for the services of traditional telephony, special stress is made on the development and implementation of the latest types of communication. In particular, one of the items of the document is active participation of city’s authorities in shaping of public support to and execution of the second stage of targeted Federal program “Electronic Russia”, to wider implementation of its trends, such as telemedicine and distance learning, allocation of premises for Internet-clubs and Service-Centers, prompt solution of issues of coordination of construction-assembly works.