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I''m a sucker for a good international phone story, and I penned an entire column on the concept not too long ago. As I said there, there are all sorts of ways to play global telecom, and phone companies are often some of the best plays on emerging markets So, does that mean that Mobile TeleSystems (NYSE: MBT - News) is the way to play Russia and the former Soviet republics? At this point, I''d say it''s a definite maybe. Third-quarter results ended up falling a bit shy of expectations. Revenue was up 27%, but the EBITDA margin (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) dropped from a year ago, and net income grew only about 3% in the quarter. While the company has had positive free cash flow through the first nine months of this fiscal year, the amount of free cash produced is about half that of the year-ago period. While subscriber numbers still look pretty respectable and churn in the Russian market (where the company gets almost three-quarters of its revenue) has abated, revenue per user has been declining pretty sharply. While Mobile TeleSystems is experiencing OK strength in premium Russian customers, overall ARPU (average revenue per user) was down 36% in Russia and down about 30% in the Ukraine. As in most telecom markets, there is competition in both Russia and Ukraine. Rivals like VimpelCom (NYSE: VIP - News) and even Turkcell (NYSE: TKC - News) have their eyes on attractive markets like Ukraine, and that''s not going to help with churn rates or ARPU. Fortunately for Mobile TeleSystems, it still has leading market share and there are still many potentially attractive former Soviet republic markets that it hasn''t yet begun to address. Is Mobile TeleSystems worth your hard-earned rubles? That''s tough for me to say. I really like the level of disclosure from this company, and it may well be one of the easiest emerging market telecoms for an American investor to follow. It also has good returns on capital and a reasonable balance sheet. What''s more, analysts aren''t expecting much in terms of growth, so lower churn and/or better usage trends could give the company some upside. Still, Russia can be one of the wilder emerging markets out there, and I''m not entirely comfortable with the amounts of money that the company will have to spend to upgrade its systems. If the stock got really cheap, I''d certainly be more interested. But there are plenty of other overseas ideas that look just as good or better today. Fool contributor Stephen Simpson owns shares of Turkcell. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. (() | 
