It was co-founded in 1992 by the Luxembourg based "ComPlus Holding" SA as the first non-state owned cell phone operator in St. Petersburg.[2][3][a]
In 1992 - 1995 the company was headed by Anatoly Afanasyev. Initially, the St. Petersburg City Telephone Network had 45% stake in PeterStar. Valery Yashin, who was elected as the Director General of the St. Petersburg City Telephone Network (Russian: ОАО "Петербургская телефонная сеть") in 1992,[7][8][9] was a member of the Managing Committee, Leonid Reiman, First Deputy Director General of the St. Petersburg City Telephone Network, was a member of the board of directors. The remaining 55% stake belonged to the Tiller company of the British businessman Anthony Georgiou. Yashin was a former director of the Leningrad State Telephone Network (LGTS) (Russian: Ленинградской государственной телефонной сети (ЛГТС)) and was general director of Svyazinvest (Russian: «Связьинвест»), which was formed on 18 September 1995 with federal ownership stakes in 85 joint-stock telecommunication companies,[3] and Nikolai Pevtsov is a director of one of the LGTS companies. James Hutt is a director of one of the companies co-owners of PeterStar. Through Complus Holding, which co-founded PeterStar in 1992, Yashin, Pevtsov and Reiman controlled PeterStar through the Danish firm Danco Finans, which controlled Complus Holding, with Reiman as the beneficiary.[4][10][11]
PeterStar offers a wide range of fixed telecommunication services including voice, data (ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet), calling cards, PBX sales (Avaya and Ericsson). PeterStar maintains the entire 32x-xxxx St. Petersburg numbering range and has over 2,000 kilometers of fibre optic cables under the city streets. Competitors include Golden Telecom, Metrocom, Equant, Westcall, and others.
^PeterStar was one of several Joint Ventures (JV) in the Telecominvest holding (Russian: холдинг «Телекоминвест») which was created in 1994 as a holding for St. Petersburg telecoms.[2] The Leningrad State Telephone Network (LGTS) (Russian: Ленинградской государственной телефонной сети (ЛГТС)) employee Leonid Reiman created these joint ventures and was responsible for the privatization of these formerly state owned companies into joint ventures with foreigners.[4][5][6]
^Питерцы уже в телефонных трубках. "Версия" (Versiya). Archived as Яшин подписал кое-какие бумаги, имеющие хорошую судебную перспективу: Питерцы уже в телефонных трубках on compromat.ru website. Retrieved 12 June 2021.