OREANDA-NEWS. October 2, 2012. MegaFon in cooperation with Lattelecom (Latvia) and Deutsche Telekom (Germany) set up Baltic Highway — a new data transmission route that is the shortest way from Russia to Europe.

Baltic Highway is the shortest route linking Russia and Germany (traffic exchange in Frankfurt-am-Main). This channel will ensure minimum time delay in data transmission. The route will provide an alternative to the existing transit routing via the Scandinavian countries (Russia — Finland — Sweden — Germany) in the north and the Ukraine in the south.

Baltic Highway will allow the transmission of data from Russia and Asia via the Baltic States, Poland, and Germany at n*10 Gbps data rates. In order to ensure high-quality data transmission at high data rates, the most up-to-date and widely applied technology, DWDM, is used.

Baltic Highway project presentation took place today in the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Latvia with participation of representatives from MegaFon, Lattelecom and Deutsche Telekom, the Latvian Minister of Transport as well as representatives from the Russian and German Embassies in Latvia.

“MegaFon continues enhancing its positions in the international carrier market. Participation in establishment of the shortest route of traffic transit linking Europe and Russia will let us make better offers to our customers, provide for networks backup and improve reliability of other routes,” says Evgeny Chermashentsev, Director for Business Market of MegaFon OJSC. “Baltic Highway will open new opportunities for development of reliable corporate networks that are of high interest to transnational business, including corporate customers of MegaFon. Shorter distance to international traffic exchanges will ensure minimum time delay, and surfing in the Internet will become more comfortable both for fixed and mobile users. We also plan to use this route for our backbone network and connection to MegaFon’s IP-hubs in Europe”.

“The project will provide customers in Latvia with the opportunity to use faster and high-quality access to international web-based content. Businesses, in turn, will be enabled to use quality and more economic data transmission services and develop new Internet-based e-services aimed at Western and Eastern European countries. With the launch of the Baltic Highway, the development of the existing telecommunications infrastructure in Latvia is greatly enhanced, providing the opportunity, parallel to Baltic-level business, to participate in the traffic transit service market connecting Russia, Asia, and Europe, as well,” says Juris Gulbis, Chairman of Management Board, Lattelecom.

“We have successfully set up a new fiber infrastructure across the Baltics, Poland and Germany in cooperation with our partners Lattelecom and Megafon. We are looking forward to satisfying our customers’ needs in terms of speed, capacity and low delay”, said Holger Magnussen, Senior Vice President International Carrier Sales & Solutions of Deutsche Telekom.