KPNQwest (Nasdaq: KQIP), a pan-European data communications and hosting company, has won a multi-million-Euro contract to provide international high capacity bandwidth services to Sonera Carrier Networks Ltd, an international network operator in Finland. The 2.5 Gbit/s "Colour Fibre" services, based on Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology, which uses optical data transmission to separate colour wavelengths and multiply transmission capacity, will be based on the virtually unlimited capacity of the recently lit KPNQwest Nordic EuroRing and the KPNQwest Eastern, Western, Channel and German EuroRings.
This contract provides Sonera with a strategic opportunity in the provision of data capacity to and from eastern Europe. Currently, Sonera offers a 2.5Gbit/s link between Moscow and Hamburg, with mixed capacity connections linking to this from the west. The KPNQwest Colour Fibre services will provide them with the same level of dedicated capacity in numerous countries to the west of Hamburg, creating an attractive high bandwidth business gateway for bandwidth-hungry Sonera customers and prospects looking into, or out of, the east. Part of the capacity runs between Helsinki and Stockholm, providing redundancy on Sonera's Scandinavian network.
The Sonera agreement follows this summer's lighting of KPNQwest's 4,500km Nordic EuroRing, a self-healing OC-196 fibre-optic ring which, when fully lit, will provide up to 100 Terabit/s of capacity across 6 Nordic cities with seamless connectivity to an additional 44 cities on the KPNQwest EuroRings network and 150 cities on the Qwest North American fibre-optic network.
About Sonera Carrier Networks Ltd:
Sonera Carrier Networks, an international network operator in Finland, is responsible for the operation of Sonera Corporation's backbone network. For more information, visit www.sonera.com.
About KPNQwest:
KPNQwest, a pan-European data communications and hosting company, delivers a carrier and corporate networking solutions, hosting and Internet services across 15 European countries. For more information, visit www.kpnqwest.com.