On 13 July 2002, the Public Joint-Stock Company "Moscow City Telephone Network" celebrates the 120th anniversary of its foundation.

On the eve of this momentous occasion, PJSC MGTS is one of the biggest telecommunications companies both in Europe and the entire world. Its shareholders, leadership and the whole of its personnel of 22000 employees view the remarkable history of the Company as a pledge of the PJSC MGTS stable future. Over 120 years, PJSC MGTS has given its top priority to stability, high quality of the provided services, and to the most advanced telecommunications technologies.

The distinctive features of the Moscow telephone network structure shaped in the course of history set up unique prerequisites for its further upgrading and implementation of a variety of projects in the Information Technologies field. Owing to the efforts by PJSC MGTS and its subsidiary companies, an up-to-date electronic communications services market has been created and put into operation in the last decade. Built up in conformity with the general reconstruction scheme, the PJSC MGTS digital network infrastructures open up new possibilities both to expand the market and enhance the Company's spectrum of services, and to attract new customers and partners. To exemplify it, the broadband data network completed in the entire city was a remarkable gift the Muscovites received by the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the Company. For the private users in any district in the capital where PJSC MGTS telephones are installed, the broadband network will mean high-speed access to Internet, using the WWW while simultaneously speaking by telephone, broad-scale access to multi-media applications (audio/video broadcast, "video by request", interactive TV, etc.), access to specialized information and directory-inquiry services, access to electronic commerce systems, distant learning, medical teleconferences, and electronic entertainments. For the corporate customers, PJSC MGTS offers facilities aimed to set up virtual dedicated data networks (VPN services); the Company's specialists are working most actively in this domain.

The PJSC MGTS plans for the immediate future, having an impact on each network subscriber, are quite extensive as well. Thus, within the coming year, Moscow is expected to face a genuine telephony revolution: the Company commences introducing the second zone code "499". Its necessity is corroborated by the fact that the possibilities to further develop the telephone network within the "095" code are nearly exhausted. However, the need for the numbering capacity in the capital-city is really great, and with the existing rate both of the housing construction and upgrowth of the business activity in Moscow, according to experts' projection, will be on a continuous rise. With this end in view, the RF Ministry of Telecommunications and Informatics passed a decision to allocate the second zone code, which is "499", for Moscow. PJSC MGTS contemplates introducing the first 50 thousand telephone numbers based on the new code within the four quarters of 2003.

At the present moment, several options to divide the Moscow territory into two parts are being considered. The option to divide the capital-city's territory per the PJSC MGTS telephone nodes coverage area is preferred most. The service area covered by Zamoskvoretsky, Miussky, Preobrahwnsky, Ostankinsky, and Petrovsky Telephone Nodes will remain within the operation of the "095" code, while the service area under Tushinsky, Filyovsky, Sevastopolsky, Tzaritzinsky, and Lyublinsky Telephone Nodes will be provided with code "499". This option is, most likely, to be accepted as a basis. Besides, a work will be done during 2002 and the first half of 2003 to increase the number of the trunk lines to access "figure-of-eight" code so that the Muscovites, after dividing the city into two code areas, could easily reach any number of either of the two code zones.

In 2003, PJSC MGTS will also start the next phase of the general network reconstruction scheme which provides for the replacement of the outmoded analog exchanges with the digital ones. From 2003 onwards, the Company intends to carry out an upgrade on a large scale of some 200 thousand numbers per annum, which will enable to double the share of the digital exchanges within the city telephone network infrastructure by the year 2006. The oldest exchanges within node areas 22 and 27 will be the first to replace. One Hundred and Thirty-Seven Thousand (137000) out of the telephone numbers in question will be transferred to the sixth million zone. Such being the network reconstruction rate, it is proposed to start the implementation of the advance telephone numbers decoupling program. Thanks to commission-ing the electronic exchanges during 2003 and 2004, about 5000 telephone numbers will be decoupled.

Moscow, being the country's main administrative center governing the nation and a giant megapolis with a complex multilayer infrastructure, has always set maximum requirements as to the performance capabilities and quality of the capital-city's telephone network operation. For the space of 120 years, Public Joint-Stock Company "Moscow City Telephone Network" has fully met these requirements, and today, both the Company's leadership and the 22000 employees' personnel are bending their all-out effort and energies to ensure a high-quality and failure-free operation of the telephone of each network subscriber. It is a long time already that Muscovites consider telephone a natural and essential element of their normal living. The present-day communications, however, are enormous technologies in terms of specialists involvement, in relation to the amount and level of the serviced equipment, and with regard to interaction with other systems. And on this significant historic day, the PJSC MGTS leaders and employees at all levels and situations feel very hopeful that the entire clientele of the Company will worthily appreciate their efforts.