March 19, 2004 Hayward, CA -- OAO Central Telegraph of Moscow, Russia, has chosen Terawave Communications as the sole supplier of fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) equipment for its broadband multiservice access program. The initiative will cover more than 95% of the OAO Central Telegraph service area.
OAO Central Telegraph is deploying FTTP access networks using Terawave's passive optical network (PON) equipment. The equipment will be supplied by Telecom Transport, one of the major distributors of PON equipment in Russia.
"OAO Central Telegraph has evaluated Terawave Communications' systems for several months to bring high-speed data and telephony to our customers, with guaranteed QoS," noted Vasily Stavritsky, director of service, telecommunication networks and systems development at OAO Central Telegraph. "The ease of installation and operation compared to more traditional solutions are the main reasons why OAO Central Telegraph selected PON as the technology of choice for the last mile."
"The success experienced by OAO Central Telegraph with Terawave equipment to serve their corporate and residential customers demonstrates that FTTP technology is ready for prime time," said Frank Lockwood, vice president of marketing at Terawave. "Working closely with our Russian partner Telecom Transport, OAO Central Telegraph replaced traditional SDH access solutions with new PON technology to deliver telephony, high-speed Internet access and VLAN services."
"PON technology is obviously the most cost-effective solution available today," said Eugeny Gaskevich, executive director of Telecom Transport. "Complete multi-tenant apartments or office buildings can be served by a single ONUI [optical networking unit]. Such economy coupled with the capability to have seamless access to IP, ATM, and SDH backbone networks; system flexibility; and reliability proved to be powerful advantages of the PON technology and drove OAO Central Telegraph to double our PON network during 2004."
OAO Central Telegraph is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the Moscow area, offering a full line of communication services to residential and business customers. OAO Central Telegraph currently offers switched and dedicated Internet access, data services, national and international long-distance telephony, uplink of automated cash points and POS-terminals to the X.25 network, and provision of city telephone numbers in Moscow and Moscow suburbs via its "Tsentel" optical fiber network.