PRESS RELEASE

Delivering 3G, 4G LTE Mobile Internet Services Drives VimpelCom to Cisco ASR 5000 Series

Russia's Major Mobile Operator Chooses Cisco Elastic Solution for the Next-Generation Internet to Enable Better Mobile Capabilities

MOSCOW – November 19, 2012 – Cisco today announced that VimpelCom, one of Russia’s leading telecommunications service providers, has chosen the Cisco® ASR 5000 mobile multimedia core platform as a core element of its 3G mobile network. The Cisco ASR 5000 Series is a foundation for VimpleCom’s 4G long-term evolution (LTE) development in key regions, including St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don, where it will deliver higher bandwidth and greater intelligence for faster mobile Internet services and improved user experiences. The project is implemented by CTI, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner in Russia. 

With the high performance, advanced intelligence, intra-chassis virtualization and flexibility of the Cisco ASR 5000 Series, VimpelCom will be able to enlarge the scope and improve the quality of its advanced mobile services, thus enabling greater customer satisfaction.

Key Facts / Highlights

• New mobile devices are emerging every day, from tablets and smartphones to smart cars, introducing new applications and services, as well as widely varying traffic patterns. The Cisco ASR 5000 Series combines massive performance and scale, so network resources are available exactly when they are needed to meet unpredictable traffic demand.
• The Cisco ASR 5000 Series is a robust, multimedia services platform that brings a new level of network and customer intelligence coupled with the ability to provide dynamic quality of service, policy control and analytics to the mobile network. Such intelligence is critical to delivering real-time, personalized mobile services and monetizing the network.
• The Cisco Mobility Management Entity (MME), an important component of the Cisco ASR 5000 Series, is critical to the network function of the 4G LTE network, known as the evolved packet core (EPC). The Cisco MME manages multiple back-end functions, including authentication, paging, mobility with 3GPP 2G and 3G nodes, roaming and other functions.
• The Cisco Serving Gateway (SGW) and the Cisco Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW) are two essential elements to VimpelCom’s 4G LTE network. The Cisco SGW provides superior throughput and processing, while the Cisco PGW acts as policy enforcement, manages quality of service (QoS).
• By combining multiple functions into a single carrier-class platform, like the Cisco ASR 5000 Series, VimpelCom can reduce signaling overhead, distribute session management, and take full advantage of the network's control- and user-plane capabilities. Built-in policy and charging enforcement/traffic detection functionality (PCEF/TDF) opens a great opportunity for VimpelCom to develop and provide outstanding mobile services for better user experiences.
• According to the latest Cisco Visual Network Index (VNI) Mobile Forecast, mobile data traffic in Russia will grow 18-fold from 2011 to 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 78%. It will reach an annual run rate of 2 exabytes and 199,162 terabytes (0.2 exabytes) per month in 2016, the equivalent of 50 million DVDs each month or 549 million text messages each second.

Supporting Quotes

• Ilya Akselrod, network development director, VimpelCom, JSC:

“Deployment of the core element of VimpelCom’s mobile network improves our operational efficiency through cost optimization. It also enables the evolution of the network and a smooth transition to LTE, reducing the risk of a negative impact on customers”.

• Paul Betsis, VP, general manager, Cisco RCIS:

“Our mobile Internet solutions are designed to offer performance and scalability benefits of a converged IP infrastructure optimized for the rollout of LTE services. We anticipate that VimpelCom will drive market innovation in Russia by capitalizing on these benefits to quickly and efficiently launch new, advanced mobile services like video and mobile Internet with the level of quality its customers have come to expect.”