BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

02/11/2006

Rostelecom and Beltelecom Connect Fiber Optic Cables to Organize Additional Cross-Border Line from Russia to Belarus

MOSCOW (RNWire) - Rostelecom (RTS, MICEX: RTKM, RTKMP; LSE: RKMD; NYSE: ROS), Russia's national long-distance telecommunications operator, and Beltelecom, the national telecommunications operator of Belarus, have completed cabling and joined optic fibers to construct an additional access line from Russia to Belarus.

The just completed first stage of the project included fiber-optic cabling from Russian town of Yartsevo through Velizh to the Russia-Belarus state border. The new cross border fiber-optic line to be launched will stretch from Yartsevo (Russia) to Vitebsk (Belorus). The throughput capacity of this high-speed terrestrial channel based on the DWDM and STM technology will be 400 Gbps with the planned further increase.

The Yartsevo-Vitebsk fiber-optic line is the second broadband channel of Rostelecom to connect Russia and Belarus. The availability of two geographically diverse routes will contribute to higher throughput capacity between two states as well as to improved quality of services provided to Russian subscribers in the Central Region. Being also the back up of Rostelecom's access to Belarus, it will also increase reliability of traffic transit. By now the Company has already set a STM-64 cross-border link from Gusino to Obukhovo.

Rostelecom's Central branch provides its services within the boundaries of the Central Federal district of the Russian Federation covering the following administrative & territorial subdivisions: the Belgorod, Bryansk, Vladimir, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Kostroma, Kursk, Lipetsk, Moscow, Orel, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tambov, Tver, Tula and Yaroslavl regions. The number of employees is around 6, 000.

Source:

http://www.russianewswire.com/releases_headlines_details.php?id=5777