On September 5, 2017, at the joint press conference of Hayk Yesayan, the Director General at Ucom, and Andrey Azhigirov, Deputy General Manager, Head of Carrier Service at MTT (Aiva Mobile brand) the launch of new “Universal Plus” service was announced.

Due to Dual-SIM technology, Ucom subscribers have the opportunity to use two phone numbers on one SIM-card: Ucom’s number on the territory of Armenia and Aiva Mobile’s one on the territory of Russia.

“We together with Aiva Mobile managed to develop a revolutionary offer for the Armenian market, which enables Ucom subscribers to forget about roaming between Armenia and Russia once and forever. In Armenia, the subscribers will be able to use the Armenian number with “Universal Plus” Postpay tariff plan and spend the minutes included in the tariff plans to also call all Russian networks; while in Russia they will use a Russian number with “My Armenia” tariff plan and will be able to call all Armenian networks at an affordable rate,” explained Hayk Yesayan, Director General at Ucom.

This tariff plan was created in a result of a survey, conducted among Ucom mobile customers, by also taking into account that over 70% of international calls are directed to Russia. According to the Director General, the geography of such partnership will expand, thus making Ucom a truly pan-Armenian operator.

With “Universal Plus” Postpay service the subscribers not only get 1 SIM-card with 2 numbers: Armenian and Russian, but also have the opportunity to use minutes, included in the tariff plan, for calls from Armenian to all networks in Russia. When being both in Armenia and Russia all incoming calls to any of the numbers are free of charge. Moreover, in case the subscriber is in roaming, he/she can receive calls not only to the Armenian, but to the Russian number as well.

“Russia and Armenia have historically been in close contact, both economic and cultural. Armenia is one of the most developed telecommunication markets in CIS, therefore high quality services and favorable prices, as well as the absence of roaming within Aiva Mobile network will be widely demanded by Ucom subscribers”, - commented Andrey Azhigirov, Deputy General Manager, Head of Carrier Service at MTT.

Upon arrival to Russia, the subscriber receives an SMS-notification with a proposal to choose the Aiva Mobile network. By dialing a short service USSD command, depending upon the region of the stay, the subscriber receives a Moscow or St. Petersburg phone number of the Aiva Mobile.