Scartel, Cisco bring 4G to Moscow, St Petersburg

Friday, 06 March 2009 01:00

Scartel, Russia's first provider of high-speed wireless Internet, is now offering access under the Yota brand, powered by Cisco's latest mobility technologies. Yota's network provides service within the Sadovoye Ring in Moscow and at the Vassilyevsky Island and Petrogradsky District in St Petersburg. The network will provide a platform for high-speed, 4G mobile services that will help make "on-the-move" broadband access available to more people.

Mobile WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16e specification, is a 4G mobile wireless technology that enables high-speed Internet Protocol (IP)-based services for both businesses and consumers who want to access gaming, music, video streaming, and transfer large files while on the go. The entire Yota core transport network is powered by Cisco service provider technologies.

"As Russia embraces the digital economy, the nation's broadband connectivity has to improve in parallel both in terms of penetration and bandwidth, and 4G WiMAX is the most efficient way of achieving this," says Scartel's CEO Dennis Sverdlov. "Cisco has always been at the forefront of innovation and IP-based solutions, so Cisco was an obvious choice for us to deliver a premier wireless broadband service to our business and consumer customers."

Cisco is providing Scartel with optical transport based on DWDM, a high-speed IP MPLS data network and data centre technology designed to support high-quality video distribution. The network was designed to support the heavy traffic loads required of Scartel's network while offering an economical solution. Cisco demonstrated full interoperability between its WiMAX radio and core network platforms including WiMAX Profile C compliant ASN Gateway on the multi-service 7600 platform.

"Cisco is excited to partner with mobile service providers such as Scartel to offer some of the most comprehensive solutions and equipment to extend broadband beyond the reach of wired networks, and improve users' quality of experience," said Sergey Belonozhko, Cisco Area Manager for Mobile. "As Mobile WiMAX continues to grow in popularity, we are working closely with our partners to help them achieve operational readiness in launching new services for their customers' evolving mobility needs."

Scartel is now working on plans to build a nationwide 4G mobile wireless Internet access network across all Russian cities. Customers can look forward to "unprecedented coverage, data rates, rich media content, as well as uninterrupted access."

To connect to Mobile WiMAX, a laptop, PDA or communicator needs to support WiMAX or a 4G USB modem. From now until March 31, 2009, Yota is offering free access to the Internet and Yota services.

* Scartel is a Russian developer and provider of mobile services based on Mobile WiMAX 4G technologies, in which the network is an instrument while services constitute a fundamental basis of business. Scartel is the first Russian Mobile WiMAX network to provide Internet access at 10 Mb/s with seamless handover under Yota brand. Today the Yota network operates in Moscow and St Petersburg. Yota offers unique mobile services based on high-speed Internet access: Mobile TV, heavy video content, music directory with thousands of leading worldwide labels, photo blogging portal and many others. The Scartel and Yota trademarks belong to Scartel.

More info:

• www.yota.ru

• www.cisco.ru

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