Investor Releases

Budapest, April 18, 2002

Matáv (NYSE: MTA.N and BSE: MTAV.BU), the leading Hungarian telecommunications service provider, today announced that its subsidiary, Westel, is the first GSM service provider in the world to launch a full-fledged commercial MMS service. The more than 2.75 million subscribers of Hungary's leading mobile company can forward color pictures, as well as voice messages using the appropriate MMS enabled telephones. The most sophisticated messaging service, based on the high-tech Ericsson MMS, is available to all Westel subscribers with no monthly charge, upon simple registration.

'The world premiere of the MMS service is the most significant milestone of telecommunications in the 21st century so far, resulting from the exemplary and devoted work of Westel and Ericsson.' said András Sugár, CEO of Westel.

The Westel Mobile MultimediaŽ (MMS service), considered to be the successor of the internationally popular SMS service, offers the possibility of attaching color pictures, digital photos and voice effects to messages. Pictures taken with a camera attached to handsets can also be forwarded in MMS messages to another MMS enabled mobile phone, e-mail address or, using the unique MMS editor function offered by Westel's special web-site (www.777sms.hu), one can also send messages to multimedia telephones, even without an MMS handset.

As another world premiere, Westel made the MMS service available to its Domino customers, already on the launch day. There is no separate activation fee to the service and one can use it with the existing SIM-cards. The tariffs of the service ' with no monthly fee, requiring registration only ' are based on messages sent, similar to the well-known SMS. Westel's tariffs are initially differentiated on three MMS types, two of them (small and medium size) can be forwarded using the currently distributed handsets. The net price of a small MMS is HUF 76, a medium size MMS costs HUF 160, while the price of the largest message is HUF 320, net.

On the medium-term ' due to the possibility of sending images, easy use and transparent tariffs ' MMS is expected to be similarly successful to SMS. According to the forecast of the manufactures, the mid-range MMS handsets, with color display, will be marketed in 2002 and Westel will introduce a technical solution which enables the owners of non-MMS enabled handsets to view the MMS messages they receive. By the end of the year messages with attached photos can be sent and received in the partner networks of the T-Mobile group while roaming abroad.