40Gbps-Ready High-Speed Optical Network Carries Traffic from Russia through Finland, Sweden
MOSCOW, RUSSIA--(Marketwire - September 19, 2007) - RASCOM, an international traffic carrier for Russian service providers, is delivering new high-bandwidth Virtual Private Network and Internet access services using Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(NYSE: NT) optical technology. The services are enabled by the recently completed RASCOM high-speed Helsinki to Stockholm network segment which uses Nortel 40Gbps-ready DWDM optical technology.

RASCOM and Nortel have worked together since 1993, using Nortel optical technology to enhance, extend and improve the network as demand for RASCOM services grew. This latest extension to RASCOM's optical network enables the company to carry network traffic from Russia through Finland and Sweden using the extended optical backbone to link Russia's central region with Central European countries via Scandinavia.

The current RASCOM network connects Moscow, Helsinki and Stockholm with a high-speed backbone route that delivers network capacity up to 720Gbps and scalable to 40Gbps enabling the delivery of high bandwidth multimedia services. RASCOM is using this newly enhanced network to deliver carrier backbone access services in Russian and European cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Frankfurt and London, cities where traffic is concentrated and demand is highest.

"RASCOM delivers highly reliable services for carriers and our network development reflects the continued growth of traffic exchange between Europe and Russia," said Vitaly Kireev, general director, RASCOM. "The opening of our network section from the Finnish-Russian border to Stockholm is significant as it is the first segment of our network to be located outside the Russian Federation. And, we are using it to add new Virtual Private Network circuit and backbone Internet-access services to RASCOM's service portfolio."

"This deployment is an important step for developing Russian-European telecommunications traffic exchange and Nortel's optical technology was essential to completing this project," said Evgueni Lissitsin, Nortel country manager for Russia, CIS & Baltics. "With future development in mind, RASCOM has also selected an optical solution that can grow with the company and deliver 40Gps services when the time is right."

The RASCOM network extension includes DWDM equipment installed at the Buslovskaya railway station at the border between Russia and Finland and the network then follows the fiber optic route to Stockholm.

Nortel's Adaptive All Optical Portfolio including CPL-series (Common Photonic Layer) and Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 equipment is used in the RASCOM next generation network solution to enable integration of IP-traffic transmission and efficient management of the SDH circuits within a single converged hardware platform.

Along the fiber-optic telecommunications line, nine new communications structures were installed of which two, located in Stockholm and Helsinki, are access sites that allow the allocation of drop-off channels. In Stockholm, RASCOM'S existing facilities were also supplemented with another access site to provide the company's customers with more ways to connect to other networks.

The creation of the route to Stockholm is the third stage in RASCOM's network extension plan. Prior to 2004, RASCOM operated its own backbone network at the Moscow-Saint Petersburg - Finnish-Russian border and, in order to deliver international circuits, capacity was bought from Finnish telecommunications operators. At the beginning of 2005, RASCOM launched its own foreign communications nodes in Stockholm and Frankfurt.

About RASCOM
Closed Joint-Stock Company RASCOM is part of the Golden Telecom group of companies (goldentelecom.ru) and is a leading supplier of international capacity for telecommunications operators with its own communications facilities and structures at the Moscow - Saint-Petersburg - Russian-Finnish Border - Helsinki - Stockholm and has its own communications structures in Frankfurt. The company offers telecommunication circuits services (licenses No: 33126, 27265, 19623, 41802) and Internet-access services (license for providing telecommunications telematic services No: 36642) and various integrated solutions in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Tver, Novgorod and other cities of the Central and North-Western Regions of Russia.