The Moscow City Telephone Network is a publicly held utility providing local telephone service to over 4,000,000 subscribers in the city of Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Its roman alphabet acronym is MGTS.

History

Founded in 1882, the network has a long and glorious history. The Bell International Telephone Company built a manually operated exchange

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

 with a capacity of 800 numbers and 26 households signed up. In two years the roll had increased to 3,000.

In 1891, the Swedish-Danish-Russian Joint-Stock Company signed a contract to provide service to Moscow for 18 years. Progress continued apace. In 1987 the network was converted to electronic switching.

In 1994 the Moscow City Telephone Network was structured into a joint stock company. A minority stake is held by Svyazinvest

Svyazinvest

OJSC Svyazinvest is Russia's largest telecommunications holding company founded according to the decree No 1297 of Russia's government on November 25, 1994, as a 100% state-owned company and registered on September 18, 1995....

, the holding company that owns majority stakes in Russia's big regional telecom operators (RTOs).