March 10, 2004 Petah Tikva, Israel -- SK Group, Korea's third largest conglomerate and one of the leading business organizations in Asia, has deployed ECI Telecom's XDM Multiservice Provisioning Platform (MSPP) equipment in a multi-million dollar project to advance its existing network in preparation for 3G.
SK Group is utilizing the XDM to bridge the gap between its legacy and next-generation infrastructure, opening up the network for the international delivery of 3G services. The XDM's single architecture design allows the company to continue to offer competitive analog services to its 18-million-plus cellular customer base, while simultaneously building on new digital services based on metro DWDM as and when they are required.
"Ultimately, our vision is to play a pivotal role in enabling people around the world to be able to send and receive information anywhere, at any time they choose," reports Don Choi, senior manager at SK Group. "But getting the balance exactly right is imperative when launching new services. You have to be careful not to impair the level of service to your existing customer base for new business," he explains. "The XDM multi-service platform is tailor-made for this type of transition, enabling our network to support better than ever performance and value for money on existing services while also providing the capability for new digital and multimedia offerings."
This infrastructure redevelopment benefits two companies under the SK Group umbrella--SK Telecom, Korea's premier mobile service provider, and SKNetworks, a Korean carrier of carriers. Deployment is now complete and running live traffic across twelve sites within SKGroup's national network. Network development is anticipated to continue steadily over the next five years and could bring the value to tens of millions of dollars.
The XDM MSPPs, equipped with STM-1 and STM-4 subrate multiplexing functionality and STM-16 transponder, sit within the SDH rings of SK Group's metro-core network, providing an add/drop multiplexing (ADM) function for high-capacity central exchange appliations, while offering a cost-effective means to hook multiservice broadband subscribers to the transport backbone when new digital services are added. The XDM installation allows SK Group to aggressively develop its national presence and realize its objective for expanding its services overseas in the near future, say ECI Telecom representatives.
The XDM MSPP converges intelligent optical networking capabilities with advanced data functionality, including ATM and Ethernet Layer 2 over SDH/SONET, CWDM and DWDM. Offering a modular approach to building next-generation services, the XDM is designed to enable carriers to maximize investment in existing infrastructure while generating new revenue opportunities.