Multi-Phone Service

In July, 2009, MegaFon-Moscow launched Multi-Phone, the first service of its kind in Russia. It allows users to make voice and video calls over Internet protocol using an application installed on their computer. It also supports instant messaging and enables users to receive notifications, send SMS and MMS and manage their status («online», «busy», «and invisible» etc). No other service in the Russian market offers all these features.

Users can download the application from the Internet and install it on their computer. The system assigns an IP-phone number* to the user, which might, for example, take the form of «mobilenumber@multifon.ru» of «nickname@multifon.ru».

Uniquely, Multi-Phone allows users to communicate over the Internet using their mobile phone number. They can therefore receive incoming calls on a computer and make calls to any phone number from a computer at a much cheaper rate than on their mobile phone.

For example, Multi-Phone calls to a land-line number in New Zealand would cost only 0.94 Rubles (about $0.03 or €0.02) per minute, and calls to a mobile number in Chile would cost only 1.34 Rubles ($0.04 or €0.03) per minute. All computer-to-computer calls (or IP-to-IP) are free.

Multi-Phone has already become popular among innovator customers and is likely to become a mainstream service in a very near future.

About the service:

Multi-Phone allows users to:

• Make and receive voice and video calls over the Internet

• Exchange text messages over the Internet

• Create a «cloud-based» address book and synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook

• Add and edit personal information (e.g. nickname, gender, age, photo and date of birth)

• Manage presence status («online», «busy», «invisible» etc) and see the status of other users in a contact list

• Make and receive calls to telephone networks

• Send SMS and MMS messages to mobile phones

• Search users by entering personal data and filters, such as username, gender, age and hobbies

• Control the receiving mode of incoming calls (calls can be received on a computer, a mobile phone/handset, or on both these devices simultaneously).

Notes:

(MSISDN) * — a unique number assigned by a service provider to the subscriber in the communications network for the duration of the contract to provide communications services to identify the subscriber (associated with the SIM-card).

SIP-telephony (Session Initiation Protocol) ** — an IETF-defined protocol, widely used for exchanging multimedia content in sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The protocol is also used for controlling two-way or multiparty sessions in video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information, file transfer and online games. SIP-telephony is an integral part of next-generation networks (NGN).

Data Centres

The ubiquitous mobile communication that MegaFon subscribers enjoy owes much to the skill and commitment of our engineers. They ensure that vast amounts of information travel thousands of kilometres each second without the loss of a single bit of data.

A vital element in this process is MegaFon’s network of data centres, which host the servers and telecommunications equipment that process and store information.

The massive growth in data traffic across our 3G network requires us constantly to build new data centres and upgrade existing ones. Building a new data centre is like constructing a large industrial plant. It costs millions of dollars. But it’s an investment that we are committed to making, ensuring that we stay at the cutting edge of technology.