Rostelecom picks Alcatel-Lucent for Russian cable system

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and Rostelecom say the Russian section of the Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) project is now operational, thanks to the installation of optical transport gear from the France-based systems vendor.

The 100G fiber-optic network will support the transmission of high-bandwidth video and other bandwidth-hungry services in Russia.

Rostelecom is one of four operators in a consortium representing four countries that, in 2011, signed an agreement to build and run the Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG). EPEG is a high-capacity fiber-optic cable system connecting Europe with the Middle East and the Persian Gulf countries, with possibility of further extension to the Indian subcontinent (see “Europe-Persia Express Gateway cable system now in operation”). The project was launched to provide an alternative high-capacity terrestrial route to the undersea data links across the Red Sea, Suez Canal, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea regions.

Following extensive project testing, the Russian section of the network has been put into commercial operation, enabling Rostelecom to offer ultra-broadband transit across Russia and helping it meet growing global demand for broadband and other data services.

Eugeniy Sekerin, executive director of telecom operators department of Rostelecom, said, “It is expected that, in the international market, the amount of transit traffic from the Middle East and India to Europe will grow dramatically in the near future, and the new EPEG high-speed optical data backbone network will help meet that demand today and for years to come by relying upon the shortest route.”

Alcatel-Lucent supplied Rostelecom with its 100G-enabled 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) product family. Spanning more than 3500 km across Russia from the Ukraine border to Azerbaijan and Georgia, the network boosts capacity up to 8 Tbps over a single optical pair.

Alexander Tikhonov, country senior officer, Alcatel-Lucent in CIS, said, “We are very pleased to have been able to work with Rostelecom in the EPEG project and to complete this very important link in the territory of Russia. Our 100G technology helps operators build high-capacity backbone networks and dramatically increase the speed of data transfer while reducing the cost per bit.”

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