Rostelecom, Russia’s national long-distance telecommunications operator, and China Telecom (China Telecommunications Corporation), one of China's leading telecom operators, have made an agreement on the exchange of Internet traffic (peering).

The implementation of the concluded agreement will make it possible to optimize the traffic transmission, minimize delays in the transmission of data to Russian networks and will further enhance the quality of access to the Internet for the Company's subscribers due to the additional interconnection of the network.

The peering agreement on between Rostelecom and China Telecom provides for interconnection of the Russian and the Chinese operators' networks at the crossborder link Blogoveshchensk – Heihe.

"The conclusion of this agreement has become possible due to the existence of a well-developed infrastructure, the cross border-link and long-term cooperation experience between Rostelecom and China Telecom – China's leading telecommunications operator," General Director of the OJSC Rostelecom Dmitry Erokhin said. "The existing high-speed interconnection between our networks opens new prospects for the exchange of considerable volume of Internet-traffic, which appears extremely important given the constantly growing number of Internet users in China and dynamic development of cooperation between Europe and Asia in general."

The project of arranging the exchange of Internet traffic between Rostelecom and China Telecom was supported at the 5th meeting of Russian-Chinese Subcommittee on Communications and Information Technologies which took place in Sochi in September last year.