Russian Oil Company Taps into Communications Pipeline

Sviaztransneft owns and operates the Russian oil pipeline system, which extends across the entire country. It is currently expanding its operations to deliver communications traffic in addition to oil, and is capitalizing on its existing distribution channels to lay dark fiber throughout Moscow.


Sviaztransneft looked for a single vendor to build out the SDH backbone to ensure interoperability among all aspects of the network and provide a single point of contact for all issues related to the network infrastructure.


RAD won the tender, in which all major SDH vendors participated. "RAD's solution was the most cost-effective," says Tsaniov Igor A., Chief Engineer at Sviaztransneft. Deployed in two phases thus far, the SDH network consists of five STM-1 rings equipped with RAD's R-STM-1E add-drop multiplexers, and five STM-4 rings, in which RAD integrated add-drop multiplexers of another vendor to provide a turnkey solution. An element manager application monitors and controls the entire network.

Prior to installation, RAD pre-configured the project in its laboratories according to specifications received from the customer, including information such as clock sources and the number of E1 lines required at each node. The pre-configuration took a few days, but was worth the investment, as it resulted in very fast installation in the field. "RAD and its distributor, TeleInCom PQ, had the network up and running in perfect order in just one day. That is an impressive achievement because SDH is a very complicated technology and it often takes days to arrange such a network," says Tsaniov.

 

Once the backbone is complete, RAD will also participate in the tender to supply the access network, RAD's area of expertise. RAD has recently provided access to the SDH networks of alternative carrier BaneTele in Norway and METROREX railway in Romania.