“COMSTAR – United TeleSystems” JSC (“Comstar” or “the Group”) (LSE: CMST) today announced that it has now received the necessary access codes to be able to provide long distance telephony services.

The Russian Ministry of Justice has registered Decree N 15, dated July 23, 2008, which assigns the required access codes for inter-city and international telecommunications connections issued by the Russian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications. Comstar has thereby received access code “23” for providing inter-city services and access code “28” for international services.

Sergey Pridantsev, President and Chief Executive Officer of Comstar UTS, commented: “The provision of these access codes will enable us to launch our long distance service offering and become a multi-service operator. This integrated offering is a key competitive advantage for Comstar. We will be able to provide local, inter-zonal, inter-city and international telephony services, as well as broadband internet access, IPTV services and other data transmission related solutions. The launch of a long distance network will also accelerate our development in the Russian regions.”

Comstar has already invested approximately US$ 14 million to build out its long distance network, which is based on a Next Generation Network solution and enables the provision of voice and multimedia services. The NGN network has been implemented on the Nortel softswitch, Communication Server 2000 technology platform.