Friday Network News: June 14

Alcatel-Lucent has announced a partnership with Russian carrier Avelacom to expand its high-capacity 100G network spanning Moscow to London. The network is designed to act as an information highway between Europe and Russia, delivering low-latency connectivity to Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as several Baltic cities, Scandinavia, Western Europe and London. [read more]

Mobile Broadband Networks (MBNL) has selected Ericsson to manage the operations and maintenance of MBNL’s UK network. MBNL, a joint venture company owned by Three UK and EE, will benefit from the Swedish equipment provider’s end-to-end operations solution, as well as a spare parts management service for its 2G, 3G and 4G networks. [read more]

Infrastructure provider CityFibre has signed an agreement with Level 3 Communications for the launch of dedicated, gigabit-speed internet services on its UK fibre networks. Under terms of the agreement, CityFibre is to connect its next-generation metropolitan fibre networks to Level 3’s global IP network. [read more]

Thai telco TOT will reportedly spend 2.6 billion baht on a fibre-optic upgrade of its fixed-line network. The upgrade is designed to provide 849,183 homes and offices in the country with faster and more efficient connectivity. [read more]

Ooredoo, formerly Qatar Telecom, has doubled its 4G coverage in the country, with the activation of 200 LTE sites. The company is rolling out the service in phases, with coverage initially available in and around Doha, the country’s capital. [read more]

The Rwandan government has signed a deal with South Korean telecoms giant, KT Corp, for the roll-out of a 4G LTE network in the Rwanda. The network is designed to deliver fast and reliable internet services to Rwandans, as well as access to lifestyle services such as e-banking, e-learning and e-health applications. [read more]

NTT Communications has opened a PoP in Barcelona, Spain, for its Tier 1 global IP network. The PoP is connected to NTT’s global, redundant ring network, which also encompasses Amsterdam and Madrid. [read more]

XO Communications has launched three cloud service offerings in a bid to accelerate its drive towards enhancing cloud computing services. XO Enterprise Cloud, XO Cloud Drive, and XO Cloud Vault are designed to provide better flexibility, security and performance for business customers. [read more]

Tata Communications has struck a deal with Telecom Italia Sparkle (TIS) to implement LTE roaming peering between the companies two networks. The deal between the two IPX providers extends the global community of interconnected LTE enabled mobile network operators as the adoption of 4G continues to grow. [read more]