The Russian Ministry of Communications had, by August, issued 96 companies with licences to provide international telecommunications services, as well as 130 licences for regional communications networks, 175 licences for radio communications, 57 licences for paging services says the usually reliable Izvestiya.
Novell Inc’s Moscow-based country manager, Konstantine Stowolosow, says five companies in Russia have now been appointed Novell Systems House status: Information Technologies Co and Radom in Moscow, Vostok in Ekaterinburg, NetSL in Murmansk and STEK in Tomsk.
Compaq Computer Corp’s business development manager responsible for Russia, Bernard Schafer, has left the company: district sales manager Alexander Kann now has full responsibility for the Russian market; although plans for a Moscow office have been delayed, there should be one during 1995.
Lamport Co Ltd is to supply Hopper-Invest-Centre with 100,000 Smart Cards and 250 processing terminals: the $10m project is based on Smart Cards and terminals from Compagnie des Machines Bull SA and Data Card; Hopper Invest, an investment fund, will distribute its cards in Russia’s 10 largest cities.
Tripp Lite has opened an office in Moscow to co-ordinate distribution of its products in the former Soviet Union: Yuliya Demina, formerly of UK company Unitech Plc, is the Tripp Lite representative.
Joint venture between Moscow underground administration and Chicago’s Andrew Corp’s fibre overlay network Macomnet, now has 23 customers and 125 Moscow locations, and is evaluating suppliers for an STM4 over-build to take the capacity of the network to 252 E1 lines per ring from the existing 63 in 1995: We expect to release an order for STM4 before the end of the year with implementation of STM4 in the first quarter of 1995, said Macomnet.
Presidential decree No 1989, signed by Boris Yeltsin on October 10, is expected to affect the Russian telecommunications market greatly, senior industry sources say: according to the document, the Russian Government is obliged to form a joint stock company to hold all the state-owned shares in other telecommunications companies; Oleg Belov, president of Rostelecom, said creating such a company will make the Russian telecommunications sector much more attractive for investors because telecom companies very much depend on each other and in this case, the whole will be worth much more that its parts.
The Russian president’s office and the Greek network integrator Intracom SA have signed a $2.6m contract for a 5,500-user digital telephone switch to be installed in the Kremlin: Intracom is involved in the gambling business in Russia and has experience in similar projects in Moldova, Kazakhstan, Romania and Hungary, according to Izvestiya.
Hewlett-Packard Co has opened a Moscow warehouse: the company reckons that delivery times to customers will be reduced to between five to eight days.
