On 22nd October, at the InfoCom-2004 regional exhibition that was held in St. Petersburg, General Manager of OJSC North-West Telecom Vladimir Akulich  took part in opening a new telephone exchange in the town of Polessk, Kaliningrad Oblast.  The participation of V.A. Akulich in the ceremony of opening the telephone exchange situated in Kaliningrad Oblast has become possible due to the Polessk-St. Petersburg visual communication.  

The opening ceremony was attended by following officials: 

• Deputy Head of Kaliningrad Oblast Administration Igor Krasnyansky;
• Regional Manager of OJSC NWT’s branch Electrosvyaz of Kaliningrad Oblast  Alexandr Andreyev;
• General Manager of CJSC IskraTEL Andrey Polenets.

The capacity of the new telephone exchange is 1600 lines, which is 500 lines more than that of the old telephone exchange.

With the introduction of the new telephone exchange in the town of Polessk, the residents of the district centre now can use a high-quality digital communication, a high-speed access to the Internet and videoconferencing, which opens the prospects of developing telemedicine and teleeducation services in the future.   

16 ISDN sets have been installed at the telephone exchange, which will provide visual communication both with the 9 towns of Kaliningrad Oblast, which already have such terminals, and with other towns and cities of Russia and the world.  

It is expected that the number of visual communication booths will be increased, which is especially important for Kaliningrad as a geographically isolated region. Starting from 1st January 2005, a person will be allowed to leave the territory of Kaliningrad Oblast only provided he/she has got a traveller’s passport; therefore, visual communication services may be useful both for the business community and for common people in the region for communication with their kith and kin.