MTS, Cisco launch X (FTTx) project

MTS and Cisco have announced the launch into commercial operation of a multi-vendor Fiber to the X (FTTx) project.

In its framework MTS plans to connect 130,000 Belarusian households to the Internet using high-speed fixed broadband access network.

"For Cisco it is the first project in the territory of CIS where Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) functionality of Typhoon line cards for Cisco ASR 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers was used," the company mentioned in its statement.

"In order to optimize operating expenses (OPEX) and rationalize distribution of investment resources for the FTTx project, MTS set up its core network on the basis of existing transport infrastructure built and actively used for the delivery of 3G services. A unique topology of that network - which has no analogs in Belarus - makes it possible to process huge amounts of data and guarantee high quality of service to end users," the company said in the statement.

MTS chose field-proven Cisco ASR 9000 core routers for their exceptional performance combined with rich functionality to satisfy growing demand for bandwidth. Deployment of Cisco ASR 9000 routers expanded the capacity of the MTS transport network, raised the reliability and ensured comprehensive support for the IPv6 protocol.

" While defining network topology, we paid attention to the fact that Cisco ASR 9000 routers deliver excellent performance for transport network and simultaneously support Ethernet services via IPv6. This solution is unique because we were able to deploy the required network services by just adding few software licenses without hardware upgrades. Long-term close cooperation between our companies helped us to deploy and optimize the FTTx commercial network within a very short period of time," said Artsiom Maksimenka, head of network development department, MTS.

"The purpose of the data strategy of MTS Belarus is to make the company the best service provider in the country. However, it is impossible without timely modernization of existing infrastructure capable of supporting complex solutions which provide cellular communications, fixed and mobile Internet access, as well as additional services," said Eugeny Bryantsev, first deputy general director, MTS JLLC.

"The capability of assigning direct IP addresses to any device will make us one step closer to the Internet of Things, which will enable people to interact with a wide range of usual objects. According to our forecasts, the number of connected devices will grow at a very high speed. That is why - when developing innovative solutions - Cisco always takes into account the requirements of scalability" said Vyacheslav Metelev, director, service provider sales, Cisco Russia/CIS.

"Current generation of ASR 9000 cards is a good example of product development strategy which focuses investments on solutions with unique performance and rich functionality. In particular, apart from supporting BNG and IPv6, the solution natively supports video monitoring, software defined networks (SDN) and close integration with optical solutions which helps significantly optimize the cost of network deployment and operation," said Igor Bliznyukov, ASR 9000 product manager, Cisco.

According to Cisco forecasts, by 2015 there will be almost 15 billion data generating devices in the world. By 2017 fast proliferation of such devices will boost IP traffic to 1.4 zettabytes, which is 14 times more than total global IP traffic in 2008.