Sakhalin Telecom Mobile (STM) (merged with Vimpel Communications)

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Sakhalin Telecom Mobile (ST Mobile) is the first mobile communications operator in Sakhalin. The company was formed as a closed joint stock company between Cable and Wireless (59.2%), Itochu Corporation, Japan (17.2%), Mitsui, Japan (8.6%), and two Russian Companies (Sakhalin Telecom and Regional Radio & TV Broadcasting Center (15%). ST Mobile received its license in October 1994, and started its services in August 1995. ST Mobile provides an AMPS standard mobile telephone service to the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk region on the Sakhalin island. The coverage also extends to main southern ports of Korsakov and Kholmsk, and includes towns as Sovetskoye, Starodubskoye, Anvia, and Troitskoye. In addition to full connection to local and international networks, ST Mobile offers roaming to Moscow, Vladivostok, and Khabararovsk regions as a part of the Bee-Line Consortium. ST Mobile spent US$ 1.3 million in 2001 mostly on improving an existing AMPS network. The company spent US$3.3 million in 2002 on building GSM 1800 network which was launched end-August and covered Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and its suburbs. The company planned to invest in the network over US$5 million in 2003-2005. In July 2005 VimpelCom bought a 84.4% stake in Sakhalin Telecom Mobile (STM), which held GSM-1800 and D-AMPS licenses on the Sakhalin Island, for $51.2 million from U.K.'s Cable & Wireless and then increased the stake to 89.6%. http://www.sakhalingsm.ru http://www.sakhalingsm.ru/cgi-st/new/index.pl?P=english_epindex