Ekaterinburg – March 12, 2007 – Uralsvyazinform (RTS and MICEX: URSI/URSIP) – reports on the first results of the choice made by residential subscribers. In total 2 926.4 thous. subscribers (or 93% of the residential subscriber base) have technical capability to choose.

Till February 28, 2007 Uralsvyazinform received 2 034,4 thous. supplementary agreements with the chosen tariff plan which constitutes 70% of the total residential subscriber base with a technical capability to choose. The rest 30% of the residents, who did not submit the agreements to the company, therefore, preferred to retain the prior charging system – unlimited or time-based tariff (time-based billing was in effect in Perm and Tyumen region since the mid-1990s).

The subscriber distribution (if per-minute billing is available), as of February 28, 2007, is:

• fixed monthly fee (unlimited tariff) was chosen by 37% of residential subscribers;
• combined charges – by 17% of residents;
• time-billed charges – by 46% of residents.

For information: Uralsvyazinform offered residents an opportunity to change the payment system for free until March 31, 2007.

Andrei Belobokov, Deputy General Director – Director for Commerce, comments: «Primarily, we would like to thank our subscribers for understanding and easy perception of the tariff reform. This is surely the most large-scale and time-consuming reform in local services ever made. It is the first time when a subscriber obtained an opportunity to pay for the local services in terms of his need for communication and this proves the fairness of the reform principle – you pay for the minutes you used. Uralsvyazinform made a decision to fix unlimited tariff 40% lower than the tariff set forth by the Federal Tariff Service, and this enabled to forestall a social acuteness of the reform and to broaden the range of people who find the tariff more optimal».