Moscow’s largest landline telecom provider, MGTS, has announced plans to spend $2 billion on its new GPON network. An investment of about $600 million has already been allocated for this year, Russian business daily Kommersant reported last week.
MGTS is a subsidiary of MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator. It currently includes a client base of 500,000 for broadband Internet services and 4.5 million landline telephony users.
According to MGTS, using GPON will enable the firm to accelerate its current 20Mbit/sec data transfer rate at least five-fold, to over 100Mbit/sec, and will eventually enable the company to scrap the obsolete copper cables that now support its ADSL and ADSL 2+ lines. GPON is also expected to introduce subscribers to HDTV, videotelephony, and other new MGTS services.
GPON is not entirely new to MGTS clients. About 100,000 subscribers are already served by this technology, and by the end of this year another 1.7 million will follow suit, according to the company.
Huawei and ZTE are expected to supply most of hardware, primarily consisting of multi-port modems. Ericsson may also join in as hardware supplier.
MGTS competitors like MegaFon, Vimpelcom and Rostelecom use FTTB, an alternative broadband technology. According to a J’son & Partners forecast, by 2015, about four million Russian households will be linked to GPON versus 18 million using FTTB.
