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Baltic Communications Ltd. Launches Broadband Ethernet Service for Multi-Tenant Buildings
Added: (Thu Jul 19 2001)
ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – July 19, 2001—Baltic Communications Ltd., (BCL), a leading competitive communications service provider in Northwest Russia, today announced the launch of its new Ethernet Internet service for multi-tenant buildings, initially targeting business centres.
The new service provides companies located in business centres connected to the BCL network with high speed Ethernet access into the internet. These ‘virtual LAN’ connections are remotely configured and managed by BCL, enabling easy and rapid upgrade of the connections. Additionally, as a native Ethernet service, customers do not need to invest in or support other equipment such as routers to link their own LANs to the internet ‘WAN’. As well as the always on internet access, customers can also choose additional options including internet e-mail and hosting services.
“The Ethernet internet service is the first step in our plans to offer integrated broadband IP solutions to our business customers in St Petersburg,” said David Whitford, General Director of BCL. “In the past 12 months we have invested heavily in developing an extensive fibre network in the city and in providing access to our customers in 30 leading business centres and we are now starting to offer higher speed services over this network. Potentially, these services can also be offered to other multi-tenant buildings, such as hotels and new apartment complexes.”
One of the main launch customers for the Ethernet internet service is the newly expanded Sampsonievsky business centre in the Vyborgskiy region of St Petersburg. It is expected that up to 100 companies in this business centre will take advantage of this new service for their internet access.
In order to support these higher speed IP services, BCL has expanded its international internet capabilities through a partnership with Cable & Wireless which provides access to a 45Mbps link into the global IP backbone. BCL is also planning to extend its links to the Russian internet through a peering connection to the St Petersburg internet exchange.
About BCL
BCL was established in 1991 as the very first commercial telephone operator in St. Petersburg and is today wholly-owned by Metromedia International Group, Inc. (AMEX: MMG). BCL offers a full range of business communications solutions: voice, data connectivity & internet. Besides its corporate solutions, BCL also provides services to telephony and Internet service providers including traffic hubbing and termination, bandwidth services and IP backbone capacity in partnership with Cable & Wireless. Connectivity is provided over BCL’s own transport network comprising both fibre optic cable (92km) and microwave radio (170km). BCL additionally operates 200 credit card and pre-paid smartcard payphones in St Petersburg & Vyborg and offers pre-paid international VoIP calling cards. More information about BCL can be found on the Internet at www.bcltele.com