The Russian telco Rostelecom is set to strengthen its presence in the country’s pay-TV marketplace.
Comnews reports that the company has been granted a five-year licence by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications to provide cable services in 75 Russian regions.
Earlier this year Rostelecom’s shareholders approved a merger with Svyazinvest’s regional telecom operators, thereby creating a single telco providing pay-TV services nationally.
Svyazinvest currently has over 750,000 pay-TV subscribers, at least 200,000 of who receive IPTV services.
Rostelecom aims to account for over 50% of the Russian pay-TV market by 2015.