Yandex Launches Local Network Program

– Company plans to have local network available in all federal regions of Russia –

– Expands into Ekaterinburg –

Moscow, December 10, 2007. Yandex today announced the launch of the Yandex Local Network Program. Through this program, Yandex intends to rent dedicated channels and place its networking equipment in all federal regions of Russia. As a result, Yandex will become a local resource for most of the Russian Web users and will be able to decrease the cost of traffic while increasing the download speed for all Yandex services.

One of the goals of the program is to make traffic consuming content, like satellite images or photos easily accessible for local users.

Novosibirsk, Russia’s third largest city, was a pilot project for the program. This October, Yandex expanded its local network into Novosibirsk by leasing a channel into the city and setting up its server equipment at NSK IX, the Novosibirsk Internet Exchange Point.

Today, the company also announced that is has placed its server equipment in Ekaterinburg at EKT-IX, the Ekaterinburg Internet Exchange Point recently set up by the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN).

The next cities to enter the Yandex Local Network Program will be Samara, Rostov-on-Don and Vladivostok.

To enter the Yandex Local Network Program and to get advertising support from Yandex, an Internet provider has to include all Yandex services in their local payment plans and inform subscribers about the services. Several Internet providers have already joined the program. Among them are KАBiNET, Olympus NSP, Uralsvyazinform, UTK and SkyNet-On-Line. The complete list of participating providers will soon be available at local.yandex.ru.

Questions and applications for participating can be sent to local@yandex-team.ru.

Contact:
Media Relations
Vladimir Isaev, Ochir Mandzhikov
Phone: +7 495 739-7000
E-mail: pr@yandex-team.com