In November 2008, North-West Telecom in St. Petersburg started commercial operation of Triple Play services based on PON, Passive Optical Networks. The Company is one of the first in Russia to have offered a full range of advanced telecommunication services, extending high-speed optical communication channels right to the client’s door.

Currently, the Triple Play services are available to users in 42 blocks of flats in St. Petersburg via N.W.Telecom’s fiber optic infrastructure. By the end of 2008, residents of 219 more blocks will be able to get the full range of PON-based Triple Play. Therefore in the nearest future the Company will be able to offer access to the Triple Play service package to 90,000 of its users.

A package of Triple Play services based on the PON technology comprises:

- digital telephony (SIP telephony under the “New Telephony" trademark) enabling the user to choose a new telephone number and reserving the number for the user in case of the user moving elsewhere within St. Petersburg, and a whole set of extra services included in the service without an extra cost: tone dialing, calling line id presentation, and call redirecting;

- Avangard, i.e. high-speed access to the Internet at rates of up to 30 Mbit/s (“Mega Avangard” line of tariff plans) with the free extra services “Local Network”, “Web Games”, “My Photos”, “My Files”, and “My Blog”;

- Avangard TV digital interactive television, where you may watch over 60 satellite and on-air channels of various content (news, sports, films, music, and much more) of digital quality and with such services as “Video On Call”, “Postponed View”, “TV Guide”; subsequently, high definition television (HDTV) will be provided.

Undoubted advantages of the PON-based Triple Play are integrated service provision by one operator, high capacity and reliability of the fiber optic channel, and guaranteed digital quality of all services. To provide the PON-based Triple Play services, special client equipment will be installed in the client’s apartment, which will enable getting all the three services from one device.

Steadily developing the “service package” sector, N.W.Telecom offers its PON-clients Avangard Duo+ and Avangard Trio+ packages. The maximum saving they offer is 480 rubles a month (if you connect to the Avangard Trio+ package at the Internet access rate of 15Mbit/s, choose the Grand Premiere package of TV channels, and sign a contract for 12 months.) Besides, when the packages are connected, the Internet access bit rate will automatically increase twice as high as the declared rate, reaching 30 Mb/s. The price of connection to each of the three services (“New Telephony”, “MEGA Avangard”, and “Avangard TV”) for N.W.Telecom subscribers is just one ruble.

Commented Oleg V. Popov, Associate General Manager and Commercial Manager of N.W.Telecom, “For our Company, the launching of the triple play services became one of the most important events of 2008. In April, we started testing the PON-based triple play services, and in August, providing the “New Telephony” service (SIP telephony) based on Softswitch and to the ADSL technology. Today, we are offering our customers the PON-based Triple Play services as an integral extension of our strategy of transition to services provided on a basically new level. As of this day, it is the most advanced way to provide telecommunication services. We expect that tomorrow it will become a consumer standard for most of our subscribers. Traditionally, we start implementing new technologies and services in the Northern Capital, but as early as the next year, PON pilot zones will appear in all N.W.Telecom branches. While implementing latest technologies, our Company never forgets about vital social challenges that need addressing. For instance, due to PON we will be able to replace paired telephones of still so many Petersburg residents with individual ones.”

The full information on the Triple Play telecommunication services based on passive optical networks (PON), package offers, tariffs, actions, and technical feasibility of connection may be seen on the website www.avangard-dsl.ru