VimpelCom expands and upgrades its national network with Ciena

Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) says it has reached a strategic agreement with the Russian telecoms operator VimpelCom for the upgrade and expansion of its national optical network. Vimpelcom will deploy Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by the company’s WaveLogic coherent optical processors, in network links that extend over approximately 10,700 km.

This plan covers the upgrade of the Moscow-to-Urals and Urals-to-Siberia connections and the southern part of the Western Russia network (the “Big European Ring”), as well as the construction of a 100G network in the far eastern part of the country. The upgraded and extended network will be commercially available by the end of the year, Ciena says.

The network linking Moscow and the Urals has been extended, based on Ciena’s coherent technology, with additional 40-Gbps channels – without causing disruption to existing services. The upgrade of the existing Urals to Siberia network will provide data transmission speeds of 40 Gbps over a single wavelength as well as the expansion of the network onto the far eastern region, which will be connected by a network of over 3,000 km in length that provides 100 Gbps over each wavelength.

The new core network will support the roll-out of VimpelCom’s LTE network in Russia and will be able to meet the increasing demand for mobile broadband services as well as the increasing volume of network traffic. The deployment of Ciena’s coherent technology enables VimpelCom to easily upgrade its existing networks to 40G, 100G, and beyond as requirements evolve over time – while maintaining continuity of traffic transmission, keeping operating costs down, and protecting long-term investments, the systems house asserts.

Ciena’s 40G/100G coherent technology is also being deployed in the upgrade of the southern part of the “European ring” network, covering Rostov and Krasnodar. This follows an upgrade of the northern section of the same network, connecting the cities of Moscow, Kazan, Ufa, Samara and Saratov, which was completed last year.

“The roll-out of LTE services and increase in broadband usage, coupled with the prospect of new data-heavy enterprise services, dictate that VimpelCom’s core network must be ready,” said Alexey Sapunov, transport network director at OJCS VimpelCom. “In collaboration with Ciena we developed an optimized architecture for our national network that will provide VimpelCom with operational effectiveness, both in terms of ease of implementation and scalability. Moreover, the network upgrade will cause no disruption to existing services and ensure VimpelCom continues to meet customers’ expectations.”

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