NEW PHONE SERVICE RULES TO BE CONSIDERED IN ARMENIA MAY 20

ARKA
May 14, 2008

YEREVAN, May 14. /ARKA/. RA Public Services Regulatory Commission
(PSRC) will consider the rules of providing and using telephone
services on March 20, said Gevorg Gevorgyan, Head of the Commission’s
Telecommunications Department.

The rules have been developed with consideration of all the possible
problematic situations peculiar to Armenian market, Gevorgyan said. New
rules suggest that a telephone user have access to his current account
and pay his bills via the Internet. Besides, customers will be allowed
to sign an additional contract limiting their accounts.

"We have studied the international practices to the rules competent
enough to rule out any possibility for the users of paying for
calls they have not made or any other error of the billing system,"
Gevorgyan said.

Armen Poghosyan, President of the Consumers’ Association of Armenia,
said the new rules should be adopted as soon as possible since
the current rules dating from 1999 do not meet the present-day
technological and legal requirements. Pogosyan said once the new
rules are adopted they will work to introduce an obligatory system
of signing individual contracts with each user.

However, Pogosyan said, some of the rules are alarming since they focus
on reducing the share of responsibility of provider and enhancing
the liabilities of customers. "Neither do the rules provide for any
compensation for system errors," Poghosyan stressed.

Once the new rules take effect, ArmenTel will be obliged to modify the
existing contracts with customers by July 1, 2009. Under the June 1,
2007 decision of PSRC, the approval of the new rules was prolonged
to December 30, 2007.

ArmenTel is the daughter company of VimpelCom (Beeline). The Russian
company acquired 100% shares in April 2007. ArmenTel provides
fixed-line telephone services to about 600,000 customers and mobile
services to over 450,000 customers.