OJSC VimpelCom has picked Alcatel-Lucent’s technical application to support the launch of new services for Beeline subscribers in the North-Western region of Russia based on femtocell technology.
VimpelCom said this application extends its 3G network coverage and capacity into buildings, office blocks and at high-traffic locations where signals provided by the nearest base station tend to be insufficient.
Femtocells or small cells serve as dedicated base stations that enhance mobile broadband coverage in specific hard-to-reach places.
Currently, the service is available to VimpelCom’s enterprise customers under the Beeline business brand in St. Petersburg.
By the end of September this year, it will be available to business-to-business (B2B) customers of other branches of the company in the North-Western region.
VimpelCom said Femtocell technology helps to provide enhanced mobile 3G signal, ensuring enough capacity for data services and off-loading from the macro-network.
Alcatel-Lucent said leveraging its business modelling expertise, it will offer deployment scenarios to help VimpelCom improve customer experience, since operators need to increase the efficiency of their 3G networks to meet the wide demand for data applications, mobile networks.
Vigorous testing and integration of Alcatel-Lucent’s Femtocell technology with VimpelCom’s network in St. Petersburg has been carried out before the introduction of this new service.
Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent has provided VimpelCom with its Femto-technology based 9360 Small Cell offering, including the 9361 Home Cell, the 9362 Enterprise Cell, the 9364 Metro Cell for outdoor environments and the 9366 Small Cell Gateway.
The companies also aim to extend the service in Russia’s North-West to individual users on the same hardware platform.
