ARMENTEL RELINQUISHES CONTROL OF ARMENIAN COMMUNICATIONS MONOPOLY
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
October 1, 2007 Monday 5:45 PM MSK
YEREVAN. Oct 1 (Interfax)- CJSC ArmenTel, a wholly owned subsidiary
of Russia’s VimpelCom (RTS: VIMP), relinquished its total monopoly of
communications services from October 1, 2007, in line with a decision
by the Armenian public services regulation commission, the commission
told Interfax.
The commission’s decision to introduce the appropriate amendments
to the company’s license was approved August 24 and came into force
as of October 1. Therefore, Armenia’s communications market has been
fully liberalized.
ArmenTel, for example, relinquished its monopoly of major and
minor telecommunications services including local, intercity and
international services. It also no longer holds the monopoly for
telephone line leases, international transit and satellite services,
public mobile services, the transmission of electoral data by Internet
(IP telephony) and broadband video.
ArmenTel gave its consent to relinquish its monopoly on the Armenian
communication market. This market monopoly, which was instituted at
the end of 1997, was initially meant to last to 2013.
ArmenTel’s general director Oleg Bliznyuk earlier said: "Starting from
October 1, ArmenTel will become a fully commercial company that will
be exonerated from several social commitments. Any projects related
to investment will be primarily considered from the point of view of
return on capital," he said.
Currently, CJSC Armentel operates on the Armenian cellular market.
Its owners are VimpelCom and CJSC K-Telecom (trademark Vivacell);
an 80% stake of the later was acquired by Mobile TeleSystems (RTS:
MTSS) in the middle of September of this year.