Yerevan /Mediamax/. Interview of the acting Executive Director of “ArmenTel” Gennadiy Kalgashkin to Mediamax Agency and Banks.am portal##

- In fall of 2007, you were appointed Director of “ArmenTel” for mobile business, and in the beginning of this year, you also became the acting General Director of the whole Company. What have you managed to accomplish in this period of time, what basic tasks have been planned?

- If we are talking about the directions for improving the activities of “ArmenTel”, the first thing, which was obvious, was the awkwardness of the whole structure. The second was the quality of service and the third – the quality of connection. Concrete measures were planned; a three-month plan was elaborated and implemented. Today, the second three-month plan for operational activity is in the process of implementation, directed to the solution of the existing issues in maximum short terms and to take the Company to a higher quality level.

We carried out certification of employees. I think you realize the complexity of carrying out such a process in a Company, which counts over 4 thousand employees. A training program is in the process of realization, in which we pay special attention to our employees in the regions of Armenia.

What concerns the quality of service; here a complex of measures is planned for working with regions and sale offices – all the places, where we meet our subscribers. As they say, hall-stand is the basis of the theatre, and our office should be based on how our customer is met here, what impression he will get. From this point of view, it is very important how our office will look from outside and inside, how comfortable it will be for our subscriber in our office. I hope that after the realization of all the measures planned, the number of discontent subscribers of “ArmenTel” will abruptly go down.

In the fourth quarter of 2007, we paid special attention to the issues of increasing the quality of connection and we were actively setting up basic stations both in the regions and in the capital city. As a result, in many regions we reached considerable improvement of connection quality.

- Which one of the businesses of “ArmenTel”- the mobile or the fixed one – requires more effort and time from you?

- The issues that I mentioned above concern the fixed connection business of “ArmenTel” as well. From this point of view, it became to some extent easier for me to solve issues, since I try to do that in a complex way. We have one contact point with the subscriber – our offices, and the task is to make the subscriber content, irrespective of whether he/she has turned to the office concerning the mobile or the fixed connection. The employees of “ArmenTel”, who work in sale offices, should become multi-purpose, that is, any specialist should provide services both in the sphere of mobile and fixed connections. It is natural that the issue of optimization of the Company’s structure arises, which we have to solve quite quickly.

- The former Head of the Company Oleg Bliznyuk stated that “ArmenTel” faced the task of becoming the best service Company in Armenia by the end of 2008. Do you think that “ArmenTel” will manage to fulfill the set task by that term?

- This task is backed by an elaborated action plan, which is really estimated for the period up till the end of 2008. Quite ambitious tasks are set in the given document – both from the point of view of connection service quality and the maintenance of a larger number of subscribers. I do not consider it expedient to give loud promises, but even already now I see some results of our active work and I hope that by the end of the year we will have fulfilled the given task as a whole.

- In July of 2007, “ArmenTel” started providing broadband internet by ADSL technology. At present, you provide the given service by “Hi Line” brand. How successfully does it develop? Don’t you think that the tariffs for the service are too high? Besides, other players in the market, in particular, “VivaCell” and “Comstar” are also going to develop broadband access in Armenia.

- We started actively promoting the given service in November-December of 2007. Its promotion process provides for “point work” with the subscribers. If usually we waited for the subscriber to visit us, in this case we are the ones to visit the subscriber and provide him the service at his place. This is a service that requires quite expenditures, and besides, it is a new one in the market. The sale of a large quantity of traffic by small wholesale to corporate customers always costs less expensive. The work with individuals is always a very expensive service. The growth of the given business will lead to the increase of traffic, and then will get the opportunity to reconsider the tariff plans towards decrease of prices. We attentively follow the market, the process, how other companies, which provide similar services, develop. In the sphere of broadband access, we have a very seriously elaborated project and we will be consequently developing it.

- Today, there is a situation present in the Armenian market, when about 65% of the market is controlled by your competitor. What measures are you planning to take up to improve the situation and do you consider it possible to reach parity as to the number of subscribers with the competitor in the foreseeable future?

- I very much respect our partner in the market, since I see high level of professionalism and correct way of managing business. What concerns our steps, the basic task is to change the attitude of the potential and the current subscribers towards “ArmenTel”. The Company still experiences the influence of the past, and we would like to give people the feeling that changes towards improvement are started. Together with this feeling, a desire to become our subscriber will also arrive.

- This year the Armenian government plans to grant a license to the third operator of mobile connection. Don’t you consider it excess for a country, which has a population of 3mln people?

- The entry of the third operator is, most likely, logical. It would not be logical to have 8-9 “toy” operators with small business, which “eat out” a share of the market, cutting down not only their own profitability, but also the profitability of the large players, making the business of telecommunications uninteresting for the investors.

From the point of view of the country’s interests, the competitive market makes the operators more flexible, creates serious necessity to work better, and this, of course, benefits the country. So, I consider this a right decision from the point of view of national interest, the most important is that the number of operators should not become even more.

- Can you name the approximate dates for implementation of 3G mobile connection services in Armenia?

- We will make the first steps in this direction in Yerevan. The first traffic will be released in April of 2008. We are interested for this service not to be just a service. The aim is not to remain behind the time. There are quite a large number of subscribers, who want to have at their disposal the most modern technologies, and we have to provide them with quality services.