OREANDA-NEWS. July 12, 2012.  “VimpelCom Ltd” (“VimpelCom”, “Company” or “Group”) (NYSE: VIP), a leading global provider of telecommunications services, today announces that its wholly owned subsidiary in Russia, OJSC “Vimpel-Communications” (“OJSC VimpelCom”) has been awarded a license to provide services over the LTE standard in Russia. An English translation of the press release published today by OJSC VimpelCom follows:

Moscow, July 12, 2012. OJSC VimpelCom (TM “Beeline”) is pleased to announce that according to the official information of Roskomnadzor, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, VimpelCom is among the winners of today’s contest for four LTE licenses to render services using radio-electronic devices in the territory of the Russian Federation. The licenses allow the winning companies to provide services via networks that use the LTE standard and its further modifications within the frequency band of 791-862 MHz.


 VimpelCom has won one of four licenses awarded in the contest. The company has been granted the license to render services within the radio frequency band of 813.5-821/854.5-862MHz across the Russian territory.


 As a condition of the licence, VimpelCom will start providing services no later than June 1, 2013. The rollout of the network using the LTE standard and its further modifications within the frequency band of 791-862, 2500-2690, 720-750 & 761-791 MHz ranges within the territory of the Russian Federation will be as follows*:


 - in 6 regions by the end of 2013;
 - in 12 regions by the end of 2014;
 - in 20 regions by the end of 2015;
 - in 30 regions by the end of 2016;
 - in 50 regions by the end of 2017;
 - in 60 regions by the end of 2018;
 - Full coverage the Russian Federation by the end of 2019.

A further condition of the licence award is that each winner will invest at least RUR 15 BLN annually until its federal LTE network is built (the federal LTE network must be built within 7 years, starting from 2013).
  
 Commenting on the contest's results, Anton Kudryashov, CEO of OJSC VimpelCom, said: "We are very happy with our victory in the LTE license contest. We have already commenced modernizing our network and making it LTE-compatible. We are looking forward to offering up-to-date and customized services with high-speed Internet access to our customers on cutting-edge 4G technology. We strongly believe that they will enjoy their LTE mobile web experience, contributing to the growing popularity of mobile data services and thus advancing the state objective of country-wide Internet coverage.”


* The table shows the number of Russian regions in which communication services are to be made available; the services are to be provided with the help of the company’s own LTE network and its further modifications in every community with a population of over 50,000, inclusive. The minimum speed for data transmission from subscriber stations to base stations (with a maximum network load) is 1Mbit/s at all institutions of secondary and higher education within the boundaries of these communities.