‘The amount of landline calls to our mobile phone users has been smoothly going up lately, just as was predicted, even though there was the initial 40% drop in public telephone network traffic due to the introduction of Calling Party Pays scheme. In October, for example, the amount of landline calls to MegaFon subscribers went up by 9% compared with September 2006. Expectedly, the amount of ‘intranet’ calls as well as that of calls from other GSM operators is increasing’, the Commercial Director of one of Russia’s largest mobile operators MegaFon Ural Andrei Ibragimov said to UrBC representative.

‘These figures mean that mobile communication is increasingly becoming the most widely preferred way to keep in touch as opposed to landline connection. CPP has also influenced the subscribing dynamics of mobile operators; MegaFon, for instance, attracted some new clients as well as built up its subscriber network,’ Mr Ibragimov said.