Vimpelcom Uses Alcatel-Lucent Solution To Launch Femtocell-based Services In The North-western Region Of Russia

Femtocells or small cells act as dedicated base stations that enhance mobile broadband coverage in specific hard-to-reach places.  At present, the service is available to VimpelCom's enterprise customers (under the Beeline Business brand) in St. Petersburg. By the end of September 2011, it will become available to Business-to-Business (B2B) customers of other branches of the company in the North-Western region.

Maxim Vorobiev, CTO, North-West, OJSC VimpelCom, commented: “Femtocell technology helps to provide a high-quality mobile 3G signal, ensuring enough capacity for data services and off-loading from the macro-network. Thus, the technology can be easily used for significant improvement of data rates for a certain group of subscribers.”

Alexander Tikhonov, Head of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in CIS said: “Because of the wide demand for data applications, mobile networks are under increased pressure. Operators need to maximise the efficiency of their 3G networks to meet this demand and provide customer satisfaction while making the most of their investment. Alcatel-Lucent’s innovative technology such as our easy-to-deploy small cells product family allow us to help operators address these issues both now and in the future."

Alcatel-Lucent used its business modelling expertise to decide the best deployment scenarios to help VimpelCom maximise the customer experience. Vigorous testing and integration of Alcatel-Lucent’s Femtocell technology with VimpelCom’s network in St. Petersburg has enabled the smooth introduction of this new service.

Under the agreement Alcatel-Lucent has provided VimpelCom with its end-to-end Femto-technology based 9360 Small Cell solution, including the 9361 Home Cell, the 9362 Enterprise Cell, the 9364 Metro Cell for outdoor environments and the 9366 Small Cell Gateway. The solution includes a network management system which combines Alcatel-Lucent’s Wireless Management System, Wireless Provisioning System and the Home Device Manager from its Motive Product Division. Alcatel-Lucent is providing full deployment and integration services along with design, installation and commissioning, software integration and project management.

The next step in this cooperation between VimpelCom and Alcatel-Lucent in Russia's North-West will be the extension of the service to individual users on the same hardware platform.