New digital highway between Asia and Europe is 50 per cent faster than existing routes - 18 Feb 08
Interoute and Rostelecom partner to accelerate TEA (Transit Europe-Asia): the shortest and most reliable terrestrial route for traffic transmission between Europe and Asia
London, England, 18 February 2007 – The typical roundtrip delay on fibre routes between Europe and Asia has been cut by 50 per cent thanks to the connection of Interoute’s pan European Next Generation network with Rostelecom’s Russian network.
Interoute has connected its points of presence in Frankfurt, Stockholm and London, the main European traffic exchange centers, to Rostelecom through a high-speed ring channel named Transit Europe-Asia (TEA). These network connections have significantly contributed to reducing the usual round trip delay on routes between Europe and Asia by 50 per cent1, 2.
TEA provides the shortest and most reliable terrestrial route for traffic transmission between Europe and Russia and effectively creates a high speed digital highway to Asia through Rostelecom’s network and its partners’ technical facilities.
Gareth Williams, CEO at Interoute said; “Interoute is committed to improving the strength and quality of digital communication for our customers. The Transit-Europe-Asia fibre channel, in partnership with Rostelecom, makes Asia to Europe overland data transmission a realistic option for businesses that want a faster alternative to sending European bound data via the USA.” The prediction is that this project will increase the portion of Europe-Asia traffic sent via the Trans-Siberian route to 20 per cent of the overall Asia Europe Traffic within the next four years. Anticipated increases of demand include the transmissions from the Olympic Games that will be held in Beijing, China this summer. Interoute’s network was critical in ensuring broadcasts from the 2004 Olympics reached the rest of the world when an earthquake in Algeria disrupted the main routes in and out of Greece.
Trade between Europe and Asia has accelerated sharply in recent years as a result of the economic growth of China, Russia and the countries of Central Asia. International forecasts suggest that the trends recorded since early 2000s will continue over the next 15-20 years.
At present, most of the worldwide traffic between Europe and Asia is routed via USA, which results in significant roundtrip delays. One quarter of the traffic travels via submarine cable systems, which are vulnerable to breaks, as seen in the recent damage to the three major submarine cable systems connecting India and the Middle East to Europe, leaving more than 75 million internet users digitally stranded. Increasingly business needs are dependent on applications that are sensitive to signal delay such as packet voice, videoconferencing and video online gaming. For some businesses dependable communication channels are fundamental to the business, for example digital television, radio broadcasting and international exchange e-trading.
Today’s economies are increasingly internet dependent and telecommunications providers driving diverse and reliable telecommunication networks are providing the way to support the digital business of the future.
Note to editors
Round trip delays Europe-Asia routes
1TEA Terrestrial Route 137 milliseconds
Data from Rostelecom
2 Combined North American Route 340 milliseconds
Undersea Southern Route 310 milliseconds
Data from TransTeleCom
About Interoute
Interoute is the owner operator of Europe's most advanced and densely connected voice and data network, encompassing over 54,000 kms of lit fibre. Its full-service next generation network serves more than 12,000 customers across a broad range of sectors from finance to retail and every major European incumbent, as well as the major operators of North America, East and South Asia, governments, universities and research agencies. These organisations find Interoute the ideal partner for hosting content, providing wholesale transit services, corporate access or creating new services. With established operations throughout mainland Europe, North America and Dubai Interoute also owns and operates dense city networks throughout Europe's major business centres. More than €1 billion in e-commerce transactions flows through its data centres each day, making Interoute a key part of Europe’s DigitalSupply Chain. www.interoute.com
About Rostelecom
Rostelecom, Russia’s national long-distance operator, is the country’s leading fixed-line telecommunications company. The Company owns and operates a 150,000 km nationwide fibre-optic backbone network, enabling the provision of a growing range of telecommunications products and services across the entire Russian Federation and international markets.
For further information please contact:
Claire Williamson / Rebecca Gregory / Jenny TaylorLighthouse PRTel: +44 (0) 20 7494 6590E-mail: Interoute@lighthousepr.com
