Mobile TeleSystems adds 100G via ECI Telecom’s Apollo platform

Russian mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) has added Apollo Optimized Multi-Layer Transport (OMLT) systems from ECI Telecom to its fiber-optic network backbone. The addition of the OMLTs to the DWDM network, which was based on earlier generations of ECI’s technology, will add 100-Gbps capabilities to the network.

MTS offers mobile and fixed voice, broadband, pay-TV, and content and entertainment services to customers across Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. To improve services, particularly in Russia, the service provider will add 100-Gbps optical transport capabilities between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, a distance of more than 1000 km. This route already has leveraged ECI’s XDM DWDM platform; by adding Apollo OPT9624 OMLT shelves with 100G cards in add/drop points, MTS will leverage the already installed XDM shelves. Core router interconnect will be a central application.

“We are facing the challenge to provide our customers quality and high-speed data exchange while its volume grows every year,” notes Andrey Ushatskiy, vice-president and group CTO at MTS. “According to our forecast the penetration of smartphones in our network will reach 60% by the end of 2015; launches of LTE networks in Russian regions will force the mobile traffic growth; implementation of fixed line Internet and its usage growth will increase the volume of data traffic in our backbones at 6-10 times. At the moment the volume of everyday traffic exchange between Moscow and Saint Petersburg is over 1 petabyte and we are building the high-performance system of backbone lines sequentially enhancing its capacity to supply the demand in data exchange in long-term perspective.”

“With about 100 million mobile subscribers, MTS is able to edge ahead with 100G capabilities in one of the main telecom links in the country,” adds Boris Mirkin, head of the Russia and CIS Business Unit of ECI Telecom. “The Russian market faces one of the fiercest competition today in the world, and by leveraging the deployed XDM network, MTS can migrate to advanced services more cost-effectively and with faster time to market.”

Both the Apollo and the XDM platforms will be managed by ECI’s LightSoft Network Management System.

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