Kazakhtelecom JSC about results of its activity in year 2005 - press-release

/KASE, February 22, 06/ - Press-service of Kazakhtelecom JSC (Astana), whose shares are traded in Kazakhstan stock exchange's (KASE) official "A" listing category, today spread press-release saying: Quotation start In year 2005 Kazakhtelecom successfully realized several big infrastructure projects, and went on networks digitalization, introduction of new technologies, rural telephonization. The key event of year 2005 is completion of building the main hoop of the National information super trunk (NIST). Fiber-optic lines of NIST, with the length of over 11 thousand kilometers, provide a stable work of the national telecommunication network, international communication and transnational transit. Start of all main areas of NIST first in the history of domestic communication let connect regional center of Manistau region - Aktau city - with other cities. Completion of Caspian FOCL building let connect country's all big cities with digital communication. One more big project of Kazakhtelecom is building of the trunk network of new generation data transfer by IP MPLS technology and new access networks by Metro Ethernet technology. There is Internet access in all big cities of the republic. Building of trunk network of data transfer by IP MPLS technology will let the company switch from traditional services to services such as IP/VPN (unification of remote offices in a single communication infrastructure), Voice-over-IP (voice traffic transfer through the Internet),VoD (video), electronic commerce and other. Introduction of Metro Ethernet technology let Kazakhtelecom organize intercity high speed channels, as well as render new profitable services. One of the services, actively rendered by the company by Megaline trade mark, is a mass wideband access to the Internet on the basis of ADSL technology. Last year there were continued works on digitalization of city and rural telephone stations. About 522 th. digital numbers were set in exploitation during the year, including on city networks - almost 400 th. numbers, in rural area - over 122 th. numbers. At present rural area digitalization level is 72.1% (in 2004 - 61.2%). In 2005 Atyrau region became the first region with 100% rural telephonization. At present 327 stations have been set on DAMA network, of them 300 - in rural areas. In 93 villages old stations were replaced with new ones. Kazakhtelecom invested KZT800 m. in solution of rural telephonization problems. At present 89% of all villages have been telephonized. Last year Kazakhtelecom provided 1,008 schools with telephones, 938 of them are in rural areas. 1,684 schools were connected to the Internet, including 1,417 in rural areas. Today 88% of republic's schools have access to the Internet. In year 2005 the company took several measures on reduction of tariffs. In particular, tariffs for Kazakhstanskiy Internet services were reduced by 50%, and for schools tariffs for Internet were reduced by 30%. Tariffs for some international telephone connections (Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries and far foreign countries). Connections with CIS countries became cheaper by 15%, and with Russia: for physical persons - by 16.2%, for juridical persons - by 20%. Intercity connections have been switched to second-by-second tariffing with the step equaling to 10 seconds. In year 2005 Kazakhtelecom earned KZT34.7 bn. of net income, that is more by almost one fourth than in year 2004 (KZT26.9 bn.). Company's revenues from telecommunication services sale in year 2005 totaled KZT99.4 bn. (KZT80 bn. in 2004) Amount of capital investments, meant for modernization and development of telecommunication networks, last year totaled KZT27.8 bn. (KZT13.9 bn. in 2004). KZT23 bn. were paid to the state budget as taxes (in 2004 - KZT19.3 bn.). Company's investments are spent for technological development as well as for personnel qualification teaching. In year 2005 Kazakhtelecom was again awarded by Euromoney and recognized The Best Telecom Company in CIS 2005. In this year Kazakhtelecom plans to build FOCL Almaty - Karaganda FOCL. Program on development of domestic internet-market will be continued with using up-to-date technologies on the base of Metro Ethernet network. Under conditions of the growing competition and free market it's necessary to continue formation of efficient management methods, providing a high level of the company's competitiveness, constant introduction of innovations, as well as business development on foreign markets. Quotation end [2006-02-22]