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New Communication Routes

More than 350 leading experts and transport market stakeholders from across Eurasia joined the 7th International Conference “Transport Networks Russia 2016 – Transport telecommunications networks development in Russia and CIS.”

On 17 and 18 March, the participants of this traditional COMNEWS conference discussed new opportunities and key prospects for backbone network development in Russia, the CIS countries and the world.

The platinum sponsor of Transport Networks Russia 2016 (TransNet) became Huawei, a leading global vendor. The gold sponsor was Zummer, the bronze sponsors – Corning, Nokia and Rotel. Forum’s official partner was Transneft Telecom; T8 became a session partner. Level 3 Communications had the status of a session sponsor, and round tables were sponsored by MSK-IX. The conference was held with the participation of Supertel, ADV Consulting, Ciena and Ericsson. Ekinops became the general exhibitor.

TransNet 2016 was endorsed by the Federal Agency of Communications (Rossvyaz), the Association of Regional Telecom Operators (ARTO), the Association of Human Resources Advisers (AHRA), the non-profit organization "The National Association of house communications and information networks " (NADIKS), the Association of Professional Accountants “Sodruzhestvo”, the Association of designers, manufactures and users of equipment and applications based on Global Navigation Satellite systems “GLONASS/GNSS – Forum” and more than 30 specialized media.

TransNet 2016 started with a round table “The Search for New Connectivity: moving backbone business towards the borders of the Russian Federation”. The delegates discussed the new opportunities for cross-border links and junction points, the advancement of traffic concentration to the Russian borders; the new routes of traffic transit between Russia and Europe: Latvia, Belarus and Poland; developing foreign infrastructure used by Russian operators; enlarging the number of cache servers of the largest content providers on the Russian territory; how the large scale LTE network launch has influenced the load on backbone networks and the structure of traffic; how the backbone market was shaped by the introduction of Federal Law No.242 dated 21 July 2014 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation for Clarification of the Procedure of Personal Data Processing in Information and Telecommunication Networks"; how the changed outbound tourism market has influenced the structure of backbone traffic market; the ways to minimize currency risk while interacting with foreign operators. The delegates who attended the session agree that the crisis, geopolitics and other challenges do not have any significant influence on the market, contrary to the influential global trend of increasing traffic speeds in transport networks, the expansion of new transfer technologies and reduced transit cost. The first round table was joined by Shamil Gabitov, Head of China Unicom (Europe) Representative Office in Russia; Olga Makarova, Director of Internet and channel resources Department, Сarrier Business Development Unit, MTS; Michael Galushka, Director of the Commercial Department, Latvian State Radio and Television Centre; Igor Kudryavtsev, Head of Corporate client and carrier relations Department, Company TransTeleCom; Maxim Syunikov, CEO, RetnNet; Alexander Tsyganov, Sales Director, China Telecom.

Olga Makarova from MTS expressed the shared opinion: “The transit market has a relatively low margin, the market is complicated and, in the meantime, actively developing: new players are coming on the scene, the providers are building new cable networks, the existing communication lines are being upgraded; some new solutions are expected to appear and enable data transfer with the speed of 400 Gbps. The current transit market is even more controlled by the operators’ main task: to retain and develop end-users. It causes most of its difficulties and it also brings success to its stakeholders. We believe that the information needs of our clients will only become greater, which means that all of us have bright prospects”.

The keynote session of TransNet 2016 “Expansion of Transport Networks” was chaired by Andrey Kolesnikov, the former director of the Coordination Center for TLD RU and currently an independent expert. The majority of speeches and presentations were made by backbone operators and large vendors. The presentation entitled “ULH network - what’s the benefits for the customers?” was delivered by Sergey Hvesin, Senior Manager of Product Technical Sales Department, Huawei. Head of Commercial Department at Zummer Maxim Eremeev took the floor with a speech “Backup as method of ensuring the reliability of data transmission”, Solution Consultant of Vodafone Russia Alexander Kotov – with his presentation “When milliseconds cost millions. Trends in the development of the Internet in our fast world”. Other presentations and speeches included “Fiber characteristics enabling CapEx and OpEx savings in fiber optic networks” by Arina Kornilyeva, Regional Manager, Eastern Europe, Corning Optical Fiber; “Localized DWDM/OTN product from ROTEL – joint venture of RoTeK (Russia) and IRITEL (Serbia)” by Dmitry Miroshnikov, Chairman of the Board, RoTeK; “Evolution of the solutions for high capacity optical transport networks” by Semen Kogan, Head of OPTICs consulting engineering department, NOKIA East Europe; “C-Lion1 - New Digital Highway for cross-border traffic transit” by Jaana Räty, Partnership Director, Cinia Cloud Oy; “Enhancing the DWDM 10G/100G networks by introducing the OTN layer” by Predrag Micovic, Executive Director, IRITEL a.d. and Dmitry Ivlev, Product Manager, RoTeK; “Transport network evolution for next generation mobile networks” by Igor Pavlov, Head of Main Engineering Office, Huawei; “The advantages of using Russian telecom equipment in the construction of transport communication networks” by Konstantin Lukin, Deputy General Director - Director for telecommunication projects, Supertel; “Evolution of MW solutions for Transport Networks of Mobile Operators” by Mikhail Golitsyn, Solution Architect, Ericsson; “Russian DWDM-system "Volga": from 100 Gbit/s to 400 Gbit/s” by Vladimir Treshikov, General Director, STC T8; “Service agility and automation on the multi-vendor networks as today’s reality” by Evgeny Saveliev, Head of systems engineering, Ciena, and Petr Mitrofanov, Business Development Director, ADV Consulting; “Transneft Telecom: New traffic transit routes” by Dmitry Aydinov, Head of Backbone Services Sales Department, Transneft Telecom. Adviser to the President of TTK Vitaly Shub made a speech “Development of optical and IP-based networks – 400G technology”.

The first day of TransNet 2016 concluded with a round table chaired by Independent Expert Vladimir Valkovich and dedicated to using the infrastructure of departments and corporations to lay new fiber-optic communication lines. Gennady Kirushin, Chairman of the Board of Directors at SMARTS, started the discussion with his special opinion “Creating of highway telecommunication networks”. To name a few participants of the round table: Alexey Azarskov, Deputy General Director - Commercial Director, Avtodor-Telecom; Alexander Volkov, Head of Telecommunications Department, System Operator of the United Energy Company; Konstantin Marchenko, Deputy General Director, STC T8; Dmitry Aydinov, Head of Backbone Services Sales Department, Transneft Telecom; Marina Nechay, Deputy Director - Executive director, State Unitary Enterprise "Smolniy ATS"; Dmitry Smirnov, Head of the Information Technology and Intelligent Transport Systems Department, State Company “Russian Automobile Roads”. They discussed the motivation and benefits for the owners of departmental and corporate networks selling extra capacity in the commercial market; the conditions for the use of this infrastructure by carriers; the experience and prospects of joint construction of fiber-optic communication lines by departments, corporations and commercial operators; the readiness of departments and corporations to outsource communication services and let their telecommunication infrastructure be serviced by third-party organizations; and other matters.

“Drivers of efficiency growing on backbone market” was the session opening the second day of TransNet 2016. Senior Marketing Manager at Huawei Qin Gao was the first speaker to take the floor, he presented a global SDN commercial overview. Alexey Sechkin, Head of CDN team, MegaFon, delivered a presentation “CDN as the way of traffic monetizing in operator's network”, Commercial Director of MSK-IX Evgeny Morozov made a speech “New routes to Europe and other MSK-IX partnership projects”, CEO of Sea-IX Egor Drobyshev – “Sea-IX: yesterday, today, maybe tomorrow”, Account Director of Level 3 Communications Andrey Ermurak – “Backbone network as the main business growth factor”.

The session continued with a round table “Will the growth of content consuming boost business efficiency of backbone operators?” chaired by Mikhail Medrish, Director of Internet Support Foundation. The participants of this round table were: Maxim Akinin, Sales Director in Russia and CIS, Level 3 Communications; Alexander Vlasov, Head of Global Capacity Sales, Deutsche Telekom; Andrey Gorbunov, Vice President of Commerce and Development, Ihome (W-IX); Egor Drobyshev, CEO, Sea-IX; Olga Makarova, Director of Internet and channel resources Department, Corporate Center, MTS Group; Evgeny Morozov, Commercial Director, MSK-IX; Ekaterina Nikishina, Director of Operators Interaction Department, Moscow City Telephone Network (MGTS); Aleksey Sechkin, Head of SDN team, MegaFon; Alexey Sokolov, Director of the Network Infrastructure Development, Yandex. They discussed the most important issues related to the transit market. The topics were as follows: how legislative initiatives for combating illegal distribution of content in Russia influenced content transfer on backbone market; the necessity of network neutrality in the backbone networks; the possibility of competition between content providers and backbone operators in the backbone market; what is more cost-effective: "direct joint", placing a caching server or presence of traffic exchange points (IX); the role of internet exchange at the backbone market; the necessity to regulate the activities of Internet Exchange Points; how IX can attract a large content provider; the necessity of Telehouse in Russia; interaction IX and data center / Telehouse – the possibility of cooperation; the role of IX in ensuring licensed transfer of content and antivirus security; and other issues.

The conference came to an end after the discussion “Investment in building one’s own infrastructure vs. leasing dark fibers: what is more profitable”. The presentation which started the discussion was made by Anatoly Vorontsov, Deputy Head of Department “Communication cables, wires and equipment for telecommunications and information”, VNIIKP. He spoke about fiber-optic cable manufacturing market in Russia and cable factories’ potential capacity and workload. Several delegates joined this discussion: Przemysław Gągała, International Sales Director, HAWE Telekom Sp. z o.o.; Alexey Ivanov, Chairman of the Board of Directors, PTM-Telecom; Alexey Klushin, CEO, Milecom; Andrey Nikolaev, CEO, Fiber Optic Systems; Vladimir Petukhov, CEO, VOLS-Invest-Tel; Vladimir Putivanov, Deputy Director for Technical Affairs, Zummer. They discussed the prospective amount of orders for Russian cable manufacturing plants in the next 3 years; the planning horizon for new routes of fiber-optic communication lines; the new federal target programs as a catalyst for expanding backbone networks; the new dark fiber routes; the new technologies in the construction, maintenance and operation of backbone lines.

In their speeches and backstage conversations, the participants of the forum repeatedly stated that TransNet was very important for the market. TransNet 2016, in their opinion, had a relevant program, high-profile speakers, well-prepared and well-orchestrated round tables and discussions.