Rostelecom Issued a $33M DPI Tender for 3G Network

 
A tweet by Allot Communications led me to an article in the Moscow Times stating that "as Rostelecom begins finally to build up its 3G network, the state-controlled telecom company plans to spend $33 million on a system to manage mobile internet traffic, allowing it to block websites flagged by the telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, Vedomosti reported Tuesday". 

The article in Vedomosti (here) says that Rostelecom issued a tender for the DPI project, and the project is planned to be completed by April 30, 2014. Rostelecom will be able to use the DPI systems to offer new Tariff plans, quota plans with speed based penalty, and more.

"Rostelecom will be the last of Russia's big four telecom companies to acquire this capability. MegaFon installed a similar system in 2009, MTS in 2010 and VimpelCom in 2011 .. MTS spent about $50 million on its DPI-based system, which allowed the company not only block the black-listed websites but also introduce unlimited Internet plans with add-on features such as parental control, said Irina Ogarkova, a spokeswoman for MTS, Vedomosti reported".

See "DPI Deployments: Mapping of Russian ISPs" - here.

"The proposed system will use Deep Packet Inspection technology, or DPI, allowing the company to filter traffic based on its content rather than its source. DPI inspects every one of the millions of packets of data within the traffic stream and makes decisions on what to do with each of them based on the content of that data. So, instead of blocking whole websites based on the IP address of the server, the system will have the option of blocking single pages, leaving the rest of the site untouched"

See "Rostelecom to Invest in Internet Filter as New 3G Network Comes on Line" - here.