Russian Telecom Partners with Alcatel-Lucent to Prepare for Transition to LTE

Russian telecom operator OJSC Mobile TeleSystems (News - Alert) (MTS) announced on Tuesday that it will again partner with Alcatel-Lucent to optimize its network and better prepare itself for the transition to Long Term Evolution (LTE (News - Alert)) technologies.

MTS will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s WDM solution to improve the quality of service and boost the speed, capacity and flexibility of its optical transport in metropolitan areas. The deployment will help the Russian telecom increase its backhaul capacity and transport efficiency, thus enabling the delivery of 3G and other next-generation communication services.

“To prepare our urban transport network for the challenges of data traffic increase due to development of fixed communication networks, 3G and future LTE introduction we looked for a solution capable to support profitable Internet growth while controlling costs and ensuring a quick return on investments,” Oleg Larionov, transport network director at MTS (News - Alert) Group, noted in a statement.

“Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) leading-edge solution can help us transform our existing network and scale as demand grows,” he added.

Alexander Tikhonov, head of Alcatel-Lucent's business in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), said that the WDM networking solution will help MTS respond to the growing need for bandwidth, while also expanding its revenue potential and minimizing its total cost of ownership.

The agreement calls for Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the WDM solution in Moscow as well as the north-west, the south and the Volga regions. St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Rostov and Ufa will also be covered.

Alcatel-Lucent's WDM solution is powered by its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS). This technology provides a flexible and intuitive platform for automated WDM networking which, in turn, helps respond to increases in traffic demand. The solution also provides a strong foundation for storage area network deployment and can enable cost-effective scaling of up to 100 Gigabit per second.

Just last week, MTS announced that it had chosen Alcatel-Lucent's IP/MPLS-based mobile backhaul solution to modernize its transport infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its AnyGto LTE backhaul solution to ensure fully managed IP-based transport for MTS' current and future requirements.

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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell