On 23rd June 2010   OJSC North-West Telecom held a presentation for journalists of leading mass media of St. Petersburg, “Results and Prospects of the Development of Avangard TV: Digital Television, Additional Service s, and a New Interface” with a demonstration of channels in the HDTV format (High Definition Television format).

The presentation was held in the Galereya restaurant. North-West Telecom was represented by the following persons at the event:

- Oleg Popov, Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Director of OJSC N.W.Telecom,

- Pavel Basov, Director of the Department of Strategic Development of Business and Marketing,

- Marina Sukhikh, Director of the Corporate Communication s Department.

Partner s in the implementation of the project for the development of IP TV service s and other service s on the basis of the PON technology were present, too:

- Valery Lipkin, President of CJSC Business Computer Centre,

- Alexey Likharev, Director of the Interactive Television Department of CJSC Business Computer Centre,

- Ivan Makovkin, Deputy Commercial Director of the Northwestern Branch of OJSC Rostelecom,

Herman Chistyakov, Deputy Commerce Director of the Northwestern Branch of the Arkan group of companies.

In the course of the presentation Oleg Popov, Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Director of OJSC N.W.Telecom, told those present about the achieved results of promoting the Avangard TV service in the telecommunication market of the Northwestern Federal District. He noted that for the recent year a stable trend of growth of the subscriber base of the service had been observed: the average monthly increase is about a thousand subscribers; and now over 21,000 clients are already using the service in St. Petersburg, Novgorod Oblast and Kaliningrad Oblast and the Republic of Komi. Today two packages of TV channels are available to subscribers in the framework of the Avangard TV service: “Première” (44 channels) and “Grand Première” (61 channels) and additional thematic package s: “Adult Stories” and “Soccer”, about 700 films in the “Video on Demand” service , including brand new movies and old records of popular programmes, as well as a free game service (see the Press Release of 29.01.10).

In the framework of the presentation, Oleg Popov announced the start of test-mode broadcasting of a package of channels in the HDTV format for subscribers connected using the PON technology. At the moment, subscribers may test a package of two channels: Luxe TV (fashion, beauty and luxury channel) and 2Sport2HD (broadcasting of all the matches of the 2010 World Soccer Championship in the real-time mode). Before the year 2010 expires, OJSC N.W.Telecom is planning to put into commercial operation a package of 7 HD TV format channels.

According to Oleg Popov, “due to the PON technology implying the laying of optical fiber to the client 's apartment, even now OJSC N.W.Telecom is ready to offer its client s to feel the advantages of high-definition TV. The future certainly belongs to this type of television, which is already popular in Western Europe and is becoming more and more popular in Russia.

Obvious advantages of HDTV are the super-clear image, the resolution of which is five times higher than that of the standard television, a better quality of the sound, and the 16:9 broadcasting format that makes it possible to use all the possibilities of modern TV sets.”

Among the prospects of develop ing the Avangard TV interactive television service, O. V. Popov spoke of the plans for further expansion of the area where the service is provided – in Vologda, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, and increase in the number of its subscribers to 38,000 by the end of 2010. The short-range plans include the introduction of a new interface, expansion of the content, including the expansion of the collection of the “Video on Demand” (VoD) service, including brand new movies and the appearance of new NTV+ thematic package s (Sports and Cinema). Besides, O. Popov noted that all air channels broadcasted in Avangard TV will be converted to the digital format by the end of the year.

The possibilities of the new Subscriber User Interface of the Avangard TV service , to which OJSC N.W.Telecom is to switch over in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were demonstrated at the presentation by Alexey Likharev, Director of the Interactive Television Department of CJSC Business Computer Centre. The distinctive features of the new interface are: higher operation speed, intuitive control, easy access to the key items of the menu, new extra service s (weather forecast, currency exchange rate s, Internet radio).

When the presentation was over, representative s of OJSC N.W.Telecom and partner companies answered journalists’ questions.

More detailed information on the Avangard TV service, the content and programme of the TV channels can be obtained on the product web site www.avangard-tv.ru .