OREANDA-NEWS. February 24, 2011. Svyazinvest made one more step towards the integration of its cellular company assets. Cellular operators of the Svyazinvest Group of Companies will start providing new packages for those who travel within Russia – “Affordable Vacation” and “A Joyful Business Trip”. It will make it possible for the subscribers to decrease the cost of one minute of outgoing traffic in roaming up to 3 rubles and to decrease the cost of SMS and GPRS-traffic.

Operators of the Svyazinvest Group of Companies – Uralsvyazinform (Utel TM), Baikalwestcom (BWC TM), Yenisseytelecom (ETK TM), Nizhegorodskaya Sotovaya Svyaz (NSS TM), TsentrTelecom (Tambov GSM TM), Dalsvyaz (Dalsvyaz GSM TM) – keep improving roaming for their subscribers that travel beyond their local zone of operator servicing. An increase of prices for national roaming and maximum simplification of the tariffs was the first step.

Now, after buying the “Affordable Vacation” and “A Joyful Business Trip” services, the subscriber has an opportunity to independently reduce the cost of one minute of outgoing communication in roaming from 9 to 3 rubles per minute, and the cost of 1 Mb during data transfer up to 10 rubles. The service will be first of all in demand with those who talk much during trips. Connection of the service costs some amount that has to be found out in the inquiry service of the mobile operator.

“Reduction of national roaming cost is one of the priority tasks on the way to increasing the loyalty of the existing subscribers to mobile communication. We try to change stereotype perception of roaming that is traditionally associated with non-controllable expenses outside the network. By doing so, we help subscribers optimize their communication expenses even during their vacation or a business trip”, - says Nadezhda German, Director of the Wireless Communication Department, Svyazinvest Ltd.

We would like to say it once again that on October 01, 2010 Svyazinvest signed an agreement with one of the operators of “The Big Three”, which makes it possible to review the national roaming policy. Since the beginning of 2011 cellular companies of the Group have reduced the tariffs for national roaming to a single tariff that is on parity basis with the one in “The Big Three”, as refers both to the cost of one minute and to the cost of SMS and mobile Internet.

Unification of tariffs and tariff options in the national roaming is one more step on the way to the integration of separate cellular assets of Svyazinvest, part of which will join the united Rostelecom by the beginning of April.