PRESS: Russia’s T2 RTK Hldg, VimpelCom in talks on joint nets

MOSCOW, May 30 (PRIME) -- A working group consisting of top managers of Russian mobile operators T2 RTK Holding, known as Tele2, and VimpelCom, known as Beeline, is discussing a joint use of networks built by the two companies, business daily Vedomosti reported Monday, referring to several people affiliated with executives of the two companies.

The working group includes Martin Skop, VimpelCom’s executive vice president for infrastructure development; Ritvars Krievs, Tele2’s technical director; and Svetlana Skvortsova, Tele2’s strategic planning director, the sources said.

The operators can merge networks in several regions of the country, not specified in the correspondence disclosed by the sources, and in each region an operator with the dominant market position will be appointed to manage the regional network.

A role in the management of the joint network of each of the two companies will depend on the contribution into its construction in each region of operation.

A person close to one of the negotiating sides said that the operators are indeed discussing a joint network use, but it is unclear whether they can merge frequencies or infrastructure. The deal is similar to the agreements signed by VimpelCom with the country’s other two major operators MTS and MegaFon.

Analysts at J.P. Morgan and UBS said earlier that consolidation of the domestic market of mobile connection is unavoidable, and T2 RTK Holding and VimpelCom were named the most probable participants of the process.

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