VivaCell-MTS, a subsidiary of “Mobile TeleSystems” OJSC, announces that beginning February 1st, 2012, “Home-Zone Turbo” package subscribers will get ten times more embedded airtime, as well as twice faster Internet for the same monthly fee.

The Ministry of Finance of Armenia reports that the price of gold has risen within the past two weeks in Armenia, which, economists explain, reflects the trend of more Armenians preferring to keep their assets in gold.

Ameriabank representatives state that part of the premises belonging to the Hayastan (Armenia) Trade Center was given to the bank against a loan debt, as required by law.

One of the major shopping centers of Yerevan, a part of the trade center was closed earlier this week and merchants have been issued documents explaining conditions of continued occupation under the bank’s ownership.

Sanctions against Iran, oil embargo, and threat of war, challenge Armenia making the prospect of freezing economic projects with their southerly neighbour seem “the least of evil”.

In the event tensions keep growing in the region, Azerbaijan is likely to resort to more provocations against Armenia.

The Union of Information Technologies Enterprises (UITE) has announced the first ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’ contest in Armenia.

Currently, unmanned aerial vehicles provide road patrol, monitoring of ecological issues, for example, referring to pollution of air and rivers, mapping, video recording and even an intelligence service.

On the territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States Armenia provides the most favourable conditions for businesses and investors, assures economy minister Tigran Davtyan, pointing out as proof that last year foreign investment grew by 20 percent and 20 new entities were founded with foreign capital.

Today Orange announced commercial launch of the new generation internet in three large cities of Armenia- Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor, and presented the latest Internet Now 4 modem. Technical testing of the state-of-the-art 3G+ network, supporting up to 42 Mb/sec speed, took place two months ago and was also participated by Orange subscribers and bloggers. Internet Now 4 modem will support up to 21,1 Mb/sec theoretical speed, if used out of Yerevan, Gyumri and Vanadzor or if used to benefit from other tariff plans.

The State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition of Armenia (SCPEC) has fined the Catherine Group Company by 10 million drams (about $30,000) for abusing its dominant position in Armenia’s nitrogenous fertilizer market.

ArmenTel (Beeline trademark) launches a new VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server) service. The commercial launch of the service for legal entities starts on January 20, 2012, in the base of Data Center of the company, ArmenTel press service reported.

Armenia’s Education and Science Minister Armen Ashotyan has pledged continued efforts to introduce information technologies in schools that will also include more Wi-Fi internet.