OREANDA-NEWS. October 19, 2010. COMSTAR – United TeleSystems (JSC COMSTAR-UTS, LSE: CMST), the leading supplier of integrated telecommunication solutions in Russia and the CIS, announces that the Southern branch of CJSC COMSTAR-Regions (100% affiliate of JSC COMSTAR-UTS) launched the construction of their own multiservice data communication network based on FTTB technology in the city of Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, with about 180 thousand inhabitants.

Network construction started near Cheremushki residential district of Novocherkassk. The COMSTAR telecom network is planned to cover about 100 houses with 3,500 apartments. Project implementation will include traffic fiber-optic inter-regional network, and FTTB (Fiber To The Building) network installation with connection to the traffic inter-regional network and installation of the special distribution equipment in the houses. The data rate in the transport section of the network will be 1 Gbps, with the bit rate available for subscribers being up to 100 Mbps.

Viktor Koresh, CJSC COMSTAR-Regions General Director, pointed out the following: “The strategy of our company regional development includes both acquisition of regional operators and building of their own communication networks in promising cities. In case with Novocherkassk, we considered network building to be the best option.”

 “The launch of network building in Novocherkassk means that soon the citizens will be able to experience the benefits of high-quality modern digital telecom services – multichannel cable TV with broadband high-speed Internet. Novocherkassk network is scheduled to launch its commercial operation in Q2 2011,” Mikhail Monastyrsky, Director of the Southern branch of CJSC COMSTAR-Regions, said.

Southern branch of CJSC COMSTAR-Regions is engaged in implementation of the consistent program for advanced development of telecom networks in the Southern Federal District with an emphasis on integration of the modern technologies for the service delivery to end users and high quality of communication services. Over the last year, the operator has commissioned several new networks built on FTTB technology and launched an extensive upgrade of the existing infrastructure in various cities of the region. Thus, in September 2010, the company launched an upgrade of their network covering 40 thousand subscribers in Astrakhan; in August 2010, the first stage of the company network upgrade in Taganrog covering 30 thousand households in 13 districts of the city was completed. In June 2010, FTTB network was commercially launched in the city of Krasnodar (covering more than 9,500 households in 7 large areas of the city).