The incumbent Latvian telco Lattelekom and Russia’s Golden Telecom have announced the launch of a new Internet channel with speeds of up to 1Gbps linking the two countries. Whereas previously traffic was routed indirectly through London and Frankfurt, it will now go though Stockholm, halving the delivery speed to 10-15 milliseconds. Among the first to benefit will be Lattelecom’s broadband Internet subscribers, who may use the channel to access Russian content. Lattelekom is backed by TeliaSonera and launched an IPTV service earlier this year. This week the telco also announced an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent under which it will deploy its microwave solution to extend broadband DSL services to rural parts of Latvia.
