OREANDA-NEWS. Southern Telecommunications Company [(RTS: KUBN, KUBNP; MICEX: UTEL, UTELP; ADR OTC: STJSY, KUE FRA)], the principal fixed-line telecommunications provider for Russia’s Southern Federal District announces its 1H2006 results.

1H2006 revenues from value-added services increased by 28.2 % over 1H2005 to RUR 832.2 million. Revenues from Internet services grew by 59.5%, from VPN (virtual private networks) services - by 52.9%, from intelligent services - by 60%.

Share of revenues from value-added services increased to 10.5% of total revenues from telecom services (versus 7.6% in 1H2005). Revenues from Internet services and VPN services accounted for major part of revenues from value-added services representing 80.6% versus 64.8% in 1H2005 and 18.3% versus 15.4% in 1H2005, respectively.

Internet services sales were supported by strong usage growth: Internet traffic for 1H2006 increased by 1.8 times to 468 Tb, connection time via dial-up access to the Internet was up 44.4% to 1,505.9 million minutes.