Orange Business Services has announced today that it has cleared the last step before full implementation of a long distance phone licence in Russia. Orange Business Services is now the only worldwide communications services provider to also be a long distance operator in this country.

With this new licence, Orange Business Services is very well placed to provide large and medium-sized businesses with international and national long-distance services throughout the country, starting early 2008. Over the past two years, Orange installed its long-distance voice infrastructure in Russia. Over US $200 million (approximately EUR136 million) have been invested to create our next-generation MPLS-based IP backbone network in the country.

The final step to be awarded with this long-distance licence was to receive dialling codes 59 and 54. This order was signed by Leonid Reiman, Russian Minister for Information Technology and Communication, on November 7, 2007.

Orange Business Services has been providing services to corporate customers in Russia since 1958. Today, Orange Business Services has 800 employees in Russia, operations in all 85 regions plus a presence in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and all other CIS countries. We serve more than 4,000 business customers in the country.