Russian Network Using Wireless Backbone

Alvarion, a provider of Broadband Wireless solutions, has announced that Russia's EDN Sovintel has begun to deploy an Alvarion WALKair Broadband Wireless Point-to-Multipoint cellular feeding solution in St. Petersburg for the local GSM network operator, Bee-Line (Vimpelcom).

EDN Sovintel is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Telecom that provides voice, fax, data, video and Internet access services to commercial and residential customers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Founded in 1990, Sovintel launched operations over an independent fiber-optical digital backbone SDH network. In 2000, Sovintel was awarded a number of wireless frequency licenses, including a 10.5 GHz license in the St. Petersburg region and a 3.5 GHz license in Moscow. At that time, it deployed WALKair Broadband Wireless backbone networks on these frequency bands to bring a broad range of broadband access services to areas with inadequate wire line infrastructure.

To further leverage its frequency investments, Sovintel is now installing a WALKair cellular feeding solution as the basis for the provision of exceptionally high-capacity backhaul services. Bee-Line will use these services as a cost-effective alternative to point-to-point and leased line solutions in the St. Petersburg region, where its subscriber base numbers approximately 2.2 million.

Tzvika Friedman, President and COO of Alvarion, said, "We are proud that our technology has played a part in Sovintel's impressive growth, and that it is helping them co-operate with this major cellular operator. Wireless communications are playing an important role in the rapid evolution of the Russian telecommunications market, making it a significant focus of business activity for Alvarion. We are dedicated to providing the full range of flexible wireless solutions that Russian operators need to provide profitable voice, data, access, and backbone services over all available wireless frequencies."

Posted to the site on 29th August 2003