Rostelecom, Russia’s national long-distance operator, and WIND Telecomunicazioni S.p.A., one of the largest telecommunications companies in Italy, have signed a reciprocal carrier interconnect agreement to organize voice traffic exchange.

For now, Rostelecom has a number of high-speed connections to Europe, Asia and the US with points of presence in London, Stockholm, Helsinki, New York, Frankfurt and Hong-Kong. Thanks to a developed system of access to the points of present in Europe, the Company has established a direct interconnection with WIND’s network through its PoP in Frankfurt.

In the field of international traffic exchange between Russia and Italy, Rostelecom has already experienced successful partnership with Telecom Italia Sparkle (TIS), Italy’s national telecommunications operator. In addition, both operators cooperate as major co-owners and Maintenance Authorities of the undersea fiber-optic ITUR cable system. The Italy-Turkey-Ukraine-Russia Cable System (ITUR) was launched in 1996. Besides Rostelecom and TIS its major co-owners and Maintenance Authorities include TurkTelecom (TT) and Ukrtelecom.

WIND belongs to the European largest fixed-line and mobile operators. Cooperation with WIDN will enable Rostelecom to expand throughput capacity on its direct lines to Italy and enhance quality of international long-distance services provided to Russian operators and subscribers. In addition, the direct interconnection with this both fixed-line and mobile operator contributes to reduced costs and increased volumes and reliability of traffic transmission.

Olga Rumyantseva, Director of Rostelecom’s Sales and Customer Service Department, commented: “Interconnection to the network of another large Italian telecommunications operator will reinforce Rostelecom’s position in the European market. Undoubtedly, direct international connection between Rostelecom and WIND will further expand our countries’ bilateral cooperation in the various telecoms fields.”

As Russia’s national long-distance operator, Rostelecom has strong international relationships. It participates in 30 international cable systems, cooperates with 400 international operators and companies outside of Russia and belongs to a number of international industry organizations, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Telecommunication Operators Board of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC), the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).

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WIND Telecomunicazioni S.p.A. (www.wind.it) is Italy’s leading telecommunications operator with 18,400 kilometers of fiber-optic backbone as well as extensive mobile network. WIND is one of the few operators in Europe to offer integrated fixed-line, mobile and Internet services.