About velcom

FE "VELCOM" (velcom and PRIVET trade marks) is the first operator of mobile communication of GSM standard in Belarus. Since November, 2007 the Company is a member of Telekom Austria Group that is one of the most successful telecommunication holdings in Europe. Thanks to technological leadership and broad coverage area velcom provides its subscribers with comfortable mobile communication conditions and is constantly expanding the list of innovative mobile services. Experts recognize velcom telecommunication quality to be a model for Belarus.

The Company started its business on April 16, 1999.

10 years of successful work of the Company is the result of effective cooperation of a friendly highly professional team of associates: specialists of all services, both providing building and network operation, the development of the enterprise, and providing ongoing support to the subscribers.

Mission

Together with our clients we move forward to make people’s lives better, offering advanced telecommunication services.

Coverage area

Velcom service is available for citizens of all regional centers, cities and large settlements with a population of more than three thousand people. Velcom network coverage covers more than 94.0% of the country, where resides more than 98.4% of the population (100% of urban residents). Nowadays velcom communication is provided by 28 193 transceivers, installed in 1 341 settlements throughout the country, there are 3 231 base stations as well as 9 switches working in the network.

Velcom network works in the main motor vehicle crossing points and railway and air border crossing across the state border of the Republic of Belarus. The Company has provided complete velcom coverage of the main highways of the country, builds network that meets the current requirements: work in 2 ranges as follows 900 MHz and 1800 MHz, support of technology of batch communication GPRS, provision of wireless access to the Internet by means of WAP. Velcom is the first operator of mobile communication of GSM standard in the country that provided its subscribers with an access to high-speed data transmission by means of EDGE technology. In the whole network coverage improved sound quality (EFR) and protection from interference (Frequency Hopping) are used. Velcom high quality communication provides optimal frequency planning. It is provided by the best experts of the country who have been trained in the leading European companies.

Subscriber base

The growth of the subscriber base of the Company over the period of 10 years is going at priority rates. 120 thousand of subscribers instead of the planned 100 thousand were connected to the network by the end of 2001. And a mark of 300 thousand, that the Company planned to achieve by the end of 2002, was overcome in September, 2002. In 2004 the Company connected the millionth subscriber. The increase of the subscriber base for the year 2005 amounted to more than 750 thousand subscribers.

The number of velcom subscribers, according to the results of 2008, made up about 3.7 million subscribers. In general, the number of subscribers has increased by 20.9% for 2008, which is the best result among all Belarusian operators of mobile communication.

According to the results of the third quarter 2009 the number of velcom subscribers made up 3.981 million but already in October the subscriber base of the company reached the edge of 4 million.

Additional services

The Company provides its subscribers with multiple services that make velcom communication even more comfortable and expand the possibilities of using a mobile phone. Besides familiar voice communication velcom offers a wide range of additional services. Among them are international calls, international roaming, SMS short messages service and information and entertainment SMS-based services: information resource SMS-info (news, leisure, currency rates, weather and other useful information at the request of the subscriber), SMS-banking, SMS2Email & Email2SMS, Logos and melodies, SMS-games, SMS-roaming. And also data transmission, voice mail, conference call, connection of Twin Cards, GSM-paging, "velcom-menu" application on a SIM-card supporting STK technology, Customer Care Automatic Service CCAS (IVR), Express payment cards (the possibility of replenishment of the subscriber’s account by means of SMS-message), WAP (wireless access to the Internet).

"Favourite" number service that was activated in the middle of January in 2003 is being used by hundreds of thousands of the Company’s subscribers.

As of today velcom holds a leading position among other operators of mobile communication in Belarus in terms of the number of roaming-partners as well as countries and territories where the International Roaming service is available. Velcom subscribers can use International Roaming service in the networks of 379 partners in 161 countries and territories. Also International GPRS-roaming service is available to the subscribers of velcom network in 66 countries and territories, in the networks of 168 operators. PRIVET subscribers can use Roaming service in the networks of 55 operator in 38 countries and territories of the world. Receiving of incoming calls and SMS messages is now available to PRIVET subscribers in 379 networks of partners in 161 countries and territories.

Velcom is the first mobile operator in the network of which an advanced technology of access to the Internet network – General Packet Radio Service GPRS implemented. Since June 2003 GPRS technology has been put into commercial operation. The work on development and improvement of services is constantly conducted in the Company. In December 2002 for the first time on the territory of Belarus velcom demonstrated MMS technology (Multimedia Messaging Service), that allows exchanging photos, video clips, colored pictures, music and other messages. In November 2004 at the annual exhibition PTS the guests of velcom stand saw the service in operation and the volunteers could receive their "mobile" photos by e-mail. Since June 11, 2005 velcom MMS service has been put into commercial operation.

In 2005 the services allowing to receive on your mobile phone useful and substantial information, including in multimedia format became available to the subscribers. The novelties of the year 2005 are as follows: MMS-info, SMS2ICQ, Infoservice, advertisements in the newspaper "Iz ruk v ruki" by means of SMS-messages, First legal aid, SMS-info service, service of personal pages SMS-pages.

From March till August 2006 the Company has been carrying out a test operation of experimental network of 3G velcom. The communication of the third generation provides the highest speed of data transmission, exchange and loading of video, great volumes of information to the phone, mobile TV, travel over the Internet and many other things.

In 2008 velcom subscribers were offered new additional services. Thanks to CLICK service it became possible to receive automatically interactive messages of informative and entertaining character (teasers) on a mobile phone. Put into commercial operation in 2009, Mobile mail allows using e-mail from your mobile phone.

In January 2009 velcom announced the beginning of work of WEB-accelerator technology thanks to which the speed of loading of web-pages from the Internet with the help of a mobile phone or GPRS-modem is increased by several times and thus thanks to the unique optimization technology there is no loss of quality of the received information.

Maintenance

Care for the convenience of the subscribers is the primary goal of the Company. Velcom subscribers are offered the most democratic service conditions and optimal tariff plans.

The Company offers the whole group of tariff plans specially designed for corporate clientsand directed to optimization of costs while maintaining high quality service of communication and service. With each major corporate client works a personal consultant.

Velcom subscribers can obtain a full range of services and professional consultations, purchase license mobile phones, GPRS- and USB-modems as well as pay for the services in 61 branded sales and service centers, thirteen of which are situated in Minsk, four in Mogilev and Gomel, three in Brest, Vitebsk and Grodno, two in Bobruisk, Pinsk, Svetlogorsk, Rechitsa, Zhlobin, Lida, and one in Zhodino, Molodechno, Soligorsk, Smorgon, Baranovichy, Borisov, Vileika, Volkovysk, Slutsk, Slonim, Orsha, Polotsk, Mozur, Novopolotsk, Novogrudok, Kalinkovichy, Krichev, Rogachev, Gorki. For the convenience of the subscribers the majority of velcom centers work to a convenient schedule – from 9:00 a.m. till 9:00 p.m. without breaks and days-off. The offices are situated in places convenient for visiting and render a whole range of possible services of the Company. All the questions can be resolved operatively and in place.

Besides, velcom subscribers are also offered ample self-service opportunities, thanks to which the clients can save their time for the reference to the sales and service centers and receive all the interesting information at any time and in any place, including beyond the borders of the Republic of Belarus.

Reference-information service of velcom (410 and 411, around-the-clock from the mobile phone in velcom network, free of charge) allows the subscribers to solve operatively all the arising questions. Direct numbers of velcom automatic service are also opened for the subscribers: 412 – for receiving of the information on the demand balance on the personal account; and 413 – on the rest of free minutes included into the subscription fee.

With the help of modern technology and online interaction with service application of the operator – USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Services Data) the subscribers can find out the balance of their personal accounts or information on the rest of minutes, MMS and GPRS-traffic, included into the subscription fee. On the basis of USSD the Company has put into operation USSD-menu *141#, with the help of which it is possible to register the payment independently, find out your tariff plan, to replenish the account with the help of express payment cards, activate and deactivate additional services, receive bills for telecommunication services for the particular period. USSD-menu *135# allows setting up GPRS and MMS-services.

Customer Care Internet Service (CCIS) allows the clients to individually perform a number of operations on servicing of subscriber numbers. It is possible to make use of the service having registered on the site https://internet.velcom.by.

Customer Care Automatic Service (CCAS) gives the possibility to the subscriber to independently receive the information about the balance of the personal account, specify the number of unused minutes and SMS, receive reference information about additional services of the Company, as well as connect them.

Being connected to Access Code service, the subscriber, having addressed to the reference-information service of the Company at number 411 or 410, can activate and deactivate additional services as well as specify information about PIN and PUK codes, when necessary to disable outgoing calls, etc.

Master of Settings service allows to independently receive the settings of the mobile phone for the work with GPRS-based services.

Nowadays velcom trademark is represented by 496 dealers’ sales points in 130 cities of Belarus.

10 ways of payment for mobile communicationare available for velcom network subscribers: with the help of Express payment cards, in velcom branded sales and service centers, at the post office, banks, with the help of ATMs, self-service terminals, inquiry terminals of the Priorbank OJSC, Belagroprombank OJSC, Paritetbank OJSC, electronic Berlio cards, via Mobile-banking and SMS-banking, EasyPay and other Internet-payments. Velcom has a wide network of reception of payments, which includes more than 10,000 points of payment across the country.

Special offers for regular velcom subscribers

Velcom appreciates each subscriber! We are glad to present special offers to clients who have been served in our company for a long time:

Post-paid service is an opportunity to pay for the services after their using. It is offered to clients being physical persons who have been company’s subscribers for more than half a year.

A phone by installments – today it is possible to become an owner of a mobile phone on advantageous terms without single payment of the whole cost. It is rendered to clients being physical persons who have been served in the company for three and more months.

Contribution to the economy of Belarus

Today velcom is the largest foreign investor in Belarus. The main investment direction of the Company is the purchasing of modern equipment of the leading manufacturers and the newest technological solutions as well as the creation of a reliable network infrastructure.

Velcom is also one of the major taxpayers in Belarus. According to the results of 2008 the first operator of mobile communication of GSM standard in the Republic of Belarus holds the leading position among the companies working in the field of telecommunications (the 13th place in the list of taxpayers of the enterprises that form the budget).

Total investment amount for the entire activity period of the Company is approximately 600 million USA dollars.

The victory in the annual city contest "The best Entrepreneur of Minsk" that was carried out by Minsk City Executive Committee, confirmed the high recognition of velcom performance in 2008.

Social and sponsorship programs

Different social and charitable programs are an integral part of the corporate strategy of velcom. At different times significant assistance was provided within different charity events, to Belarusian Children’s Hospice, The Association of the patients with multiple sclerosis, to The Children in Need Belarusian Republican Society, The International Community of Orphans, the disabled and the poor, Female Charitable Association, to the Rehabilitation Center – the House of Mercy, and charity marathons.

The Company never forgets such an important social group as poor and disabled people. The social program of velcom includes several directions. War veterans, the disabled, the participants of hostilities in Afghanistan and other categories of citizens who have the right for benefits enshrined by the State, are serviced in the Company under the reduced rate.

In summer 2004 during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus velcom presented two mobile phones to two hundred war veterans and connected them to special preferential tariff plan.

The leading sportsmen of the country that are tennis player Maksim Mirny and the owner of the gold medal won at the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens, Yuliya Nesterenko, were the participants of velcom advertising campaigns.

Velcom is the sponsor of the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the General Sponsor of Paralympics Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the Academy of Physical Education, and the Belarusian Tennis Association. In addition, velcom acts as the official sponsor of the stages of Davis Cup tennis competitions, taking place in Belarus and abroad, the sponsor of the Bate football team, the football champion of Belarus, and the Yunost national hockey team, the champion of Belarus.

^{FE "VELCOM" renders telecommunication services on the basis of the licence issued by the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus, issued on the grounds of decision No. 53 dated August 24, 2007 for a period of 10 years and being valid till August 24, 2017. The licence is registered in the Licence Register of the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus under No. 925. UNP (TIN) 101528843.}

^{The Licence on retail trade (including alcoholic beverages and tobacco products) and on catering is issued on the grounds of decision No. 2215 of the Minsk City Executive Committee dated September 27, 2007 for a period of five years and being valid till September 27, 2012. The licence is registered in the Licence Register of the Minsk City Executive Committee under No. 27062.}