Leading Russian telecom operator TTK has purchased 100% shares in Electro-Com, an Internet provider working under Spark brand, TelecomDaily reports.

The deal will bring TTK leading position in broadband Internet access markets of Rostov-on-Don and Ryazan and place among top-three telecom operators in the cities of Taganrog, Volgodonsk and Kaluga. The purchase will also open for TTK broadband Internet markets of Tula, Krasnodar, Bryansk and Obninsk.

“As a result of this purchase, the number of the company’s Internet customers has grown by 50%. The deal is TTK’s largest transaction ever,” said Shukhrat Ibragimov, vice-president for strategic development, TTK.

An independent operator, Electro-Com was founded in Moscow in 2003. The company provides broadband Internet services to private and corporate customers. Electro-Com’s 920-kilometer FTTB network covers 700,000 households in the above-listed cities.

A subsidiary of Russian Railways (RZD), TTK currently operates and services the largest fiber-optic communication network in Russia. Laid alongside the railways, the network is longer than 75,000 km, has a network capacity of 560 Gbit/s, has more than 1,000 access nodes in all regions of Russia, and is connected to Europe and Asia. Transtelecom currently offers broadband services in 94 Russian cities, making it one of the leading alternative operators of fixed line communications. In September 2011, it won 20 wireless Internet licenses in three tenders organized by the regulation authorities. Earlier this month, the company announced it is preparing to launch cable TV services next spring in several Russian regions.