OREANDA-NEWS. On 28 July 2008 was announced, that Rostelecom’s strategy committee worked out a new development program. Specifically, it calls for breaking onto the broadband Internet (BI) market. Information about Rostelecom’s new development strategy, which will be submitted within the next two weeks for approval to the BoD, was disclosed by a source close to the board.

Official representatives of Svyazinvest (Oleg Mikhailov) and Rostelecom (Ivan Kim) confirmed this, declining to reveal any further details. KIT Finance also declined to comment.

Rostelecom is eager to enter the last-mile market in the regions where Svyazinvest’s regional telecoms still lack a presence, a source close to Rostelecom’s BoD noted. In particular, Rostelecom could offer BI services to household users, a Svyazinvest source noted. “Rostelecom’s survival strategy requires accessing end users, as this is the only way to raise earnings” – Uralsib analyst Konstantin Chernyshev believes. In his opinion, Rostelecom, which operates a backbone network, could build networks to reach end users and also get involved in taking over regional concerns. As a matter of fact, there are still quite a few interesting acquisition targets in Russia and the option is also under review to enter the FSU market, a source close to Rostelecom’s BoD added. The operator has funds for acquisitions, as it sold its 11% interest in Golden Telecom for \\$464 mln this February.

Independent operators still do business in the regions, e.g. in the republics of Tatarstan, Sakha (Yakutia), Norilsk and Kostroma, Comstar-UTS CEO Sergey Pridantsev confirms. Meanwhile, there are quite a few contenders willing to buy these assets. Not only Comstar-UTS, but, for example, VimpelCom, are also eying these businesses.