Stamford, Connecticut-based GTE Spacenet has denied reports published in the Soviet newspaper Inzhenernaya Gazeta and repeated here (CI No 1,724) that it is involved in a $140m project to create a radiotelephone network for the Soviet Far East. The company says it has no knowledge of the Daltelcom joint venture, quoted in the stories. Last month, GTE Spacenet announced a joint venture called Sovintel with San Francisco/Moscow Teleport and the Main Truck Lines Control Centre of the Soviet Ministry of Communications. The new company will provide a digital network service that will link international hotels and business centres in Moscow with switched telephone networks in the rest of the world. Four Moscow hotels have so far signed for Sovintel services: the Savoy, the Moscow Metropol, Sofitel Sovietskaya, and the Academy II. It is not uncommon for international calls placed at Soviet hotels to take hours to complete. Any business executive who has stayed in a Moscow hotel and tried to place or receive an international call knows how significant this new network will be, comments Dr C J Wayne, president of GTE Spacenet.
