MOSCOW, January 24 (RIA Novosti) - Golden Telecom (GT) will become Russia's third provider of long-distance call services from January 29, the company's chief executive said Wednesday.
Jean-Pierre Vandromme said GT would offer long-distance services within the country using the calling code 51, and overseas calls with the code 56.
GT, which will join Russian companies Rostelecom and MTT on the long-distance calls market, plans to gain a 20% market share by 2010, and earn $1 billion from its services, Vandromme said. The country's total long-distance calls market will be worth $4.8 billion by that time, compared to $2.8 billion last year, he added.
The GT chief executive said the company's tariffs for national calls would be 10% lower on average than Rostelecom's, and 10-65% lower for international calls.
He also said a special tariff of $20 a month could be established for unlimited calls, and that company would set up a network of more than 4,000 agents and about 30,000 distribution offices across Russia to sell its services to customers.
Vandromme also said GT would start providing broadband wireless Internet services in Russia from February 1. The company already has 6,700 sites providing Wi-Fi access, a project which cost GT $10 million, and plans to cover all of Moscow by connecting 200 access points per week over the next 40 weeks, he said.
GT provides integrated telecommunications and Internet services in Russia's main cities and in other former Soviet nations. Its major shareholders are Alfa Group's telecoms arm Altimo (29%), Norway's Telenor (20%), and Rostelecom (11%).
