Mobile operator Uralsvyazinform awards order for GSM technology and signs letter of intent worth 40 million euros for future network expansion
The fourth largest Russian mobile provider and leading operator in the Urals, OAO Uralsvyazinform (USI), has commissioned Siemens mobile, the mobile communication group at Siemens, to expand its GSM network. The order covers delivery and installation of GSM technology in the city of Yekaterinburg, the Sverdlovsk region and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District, and is worth 13.5 million euros. In addition, Siemens and USI have signed a letter of intent which sees network expansion in the Urals covering a total volume of around 40 million euros for the next two years.
By the end of August 2004, Siemens will expand the existing GSM network of the Russian mobile provider Uralsvyazinform in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District. This encompasses the delivery of more than 100 base stations as well as switches for up to 500,000 subscribers.
In Yekaterinburg, and the Sverdlovsk region, where USI acquired a new GSM 900/1800 license in December 2003, Siemens will supply 170 EDGE-capable base stations, switching systems with high-performance processors for 500,000 subscribers, a central network management system, and network planning software. The network will go into commercial operation by fall 2004.
“The launch of the GSM network in the Sverdlovsk region is a key project for USI in 2004. The Sverdlovsk region is the main region of our company’s activities and we thus plan to offer, as early as the fall, high-quality mobile services at reasonable prices to its 4.5 million inhabitants. The equipment and software from Siemens will allow USI to provide its future subscribers in the Sverdlovsk region with competitive communication services based on state-of-the-art mobile technologies”, explained Vladimir I. Rybakin, Head of Uralsvyazinform. USI, together with six other regional network operators in Russia, belongs to the telecommunications company Svyazinvest, a majority state-run company, and is at present the clear market leader in the Urals with 1.6 million mobile subscribers.
“We are pleased with this order to be growing into one of Uralsvyazinform’s biggest suppliers”, said Christoph Caselitz, Head of the Networks Division at Siemens mobile. “Our task is now to intensify our collaboration with Uralsvyazinform through excellent performance, and ensure that the letter of intent is followed successively by further concrete orders.”
Uralsvyazinform is the biggest operator of telecommunications services and the leading internet provider in the Urals region. The company is active in eight subjects of the Russian Federation covering a territory of 1.9 million square km and a population of 15.5 million (the Kurgan, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen and Tschelyabinsk regions, and the Komi-Perm, Khanty-Mansijsk and Jamal-Nenentsk Autonomous Districts). As of 1 August 2004 the company now serves 3.2 million subscribers of fixed networks and 1.6 million subscribers of mobile networks, occupying 90 percent on the local market for telecom services, 76 percent for long-distance communications, 45 percent for mobile communications, and 41 percent for internet services. In 2003, OAO “Uralsvyazinform” achieved earnings of 22 billion rubles and net income of 1.2 billion rubles. The capitalization of the company is 1.2 billion USD.