On the 5th of April 2005 a press conference of OJSC North-West Telecom was held in St. Petersburg, Chief executive officer Vladimir Akulich told those attending about the completion of implementing one of the Company’s main projects for 2004-2005 – the Programme of Providing Telephone Communication to Veterans and Disabled Veterans of the Great Patriotic War, which has been implemented in the framework of celebrating the 60th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.  

The Programme in the framework of celebrating the 60th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War included:

 - fully meeting by 1st January 2005 all applications from Veterans of the Great Patriotic War for providing telephone communication, that were filed before 1st January 2004, including free installation of telephone connections for Disabled Veterans of World War II and the categories of citizens having the equal status. (fulfilling the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation based on the results of the meeting of the RF Council of State of 2nd July 2004 dedicated to the preparation for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War);

 - installation by 1st April 2005 of telephone connections for veterans and disabled veterans of the War, who filed their applications before 31st March 2005, including target aid and, in some cases, free installation of telephone communication (upon initiative of OJSC North-West Telecom).     

Besides, upon its own initiative, NWT also undertook to satisfy the applications from veterans and disabled veterans of WW II, that are received by the company in the period from 1st April till 9th May 2005.

On the whole, in the framework of the said programme, NWT has already satisfied about 6,000 applications from WW II veterans.   Investment in the implementation of the Programme is significant and in fact it will not pay back, as almost all veterans, whose flats or houses had no telephone communication before, reside in remote areas without free telephone capacity or communication channels. The cost of extra equipment and construction operations for ‘last mile’ arrangement alone has amounted to 68.3 million roubles.

For instance, telephone connections installation for four subscribers in the village of Zaonezhye, Medvezhyegorsky District of the Republic of Karelia alone cost NWT 424,000 roubles (without taking into account the construction and installation work done by NWT without external aid). These funds have been used for the installation of three masts; 4 Eleton type radio extenders and for the acquisition of frequencies for their connection. Or another example: the station of Selishche, Okulovsky District in Novgorod Oblast, where a communication line with multiplexing equipment has been built, the total cost of line and multiplexing equipment construction being 112,000 roubles.

The programme of providing WW II veterans with telephone communication was partly implemented using funds of the regional and federal budgets. The Governments of Leningrad Oblast and the Republic of Komi have made the largest contribution.

To fulfil the received applications for provision with telephone communication in due time, the company has resorted to all possible technical and technological facilities: from the traditional wire telephone communication to wireless radio technologies (DECT, Altay, RITAL, Senao, etc.). 

Vladimir Akulich noted: ‘Solving the task of providing telephone communication to veterans, we sought the best options making it possible to observe the established timing. Radio technologies have made it possible to do everything on schedule and to optimize our expenses significantly.’ E.g., in the village of Alexandrovskaya, Novgorod District, a subscriber line over 18 km in length was to be built.  The cost of construction by the traditional method would be 500,000 roubles. We found an original technological solution: the telephone was connected using a Senao radio extender.  The costs amounted to 35,000 roubles.