Russian Broadband Service Launches HDTV Service

MOSCOW, February 27: Comstar-Direct’s
Stream service, the largest broadband operator in Moscow, has launched a
high-definition TV offering.

Comstar-Direct is a
subsidiary of the telecommunications operator Comstar—United TeleSystems
(UTS), the leading fixed-line provider in Moscow. The soft-launch of Stream’s
HDTV offering will run till June 1. It currently offers four channels—Discovery
HD, MelodyZen, Luxe TV and Voom HD—and a package of ten movies via VOD.

Sergey Pridantsev, the
president and CEO of Comstar UTS, commented: “The Moscow broadband market has
reached an advanced stage of development. Today, our subscribers are interested
not only in access to high speeds, but also in exciting and high-quality
content. We are planning to provide our clients with both HDTV and high-speed
Internet access.”

In Moscow, Comstar has 3.6
million residential subscribers, 452,600 broadband Internet subscribers and
108,600 corporate subscribers. Comstar also has approximately 94,100 regional
and international subscribers, as of September 30, 2007.

—By Mansha Daswani