Biathlon is the number one sport in Siberia's Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous district, stemming from times when effective hunting in that region required the ability to ski fast and shoot accurately. How appropriate, then, that the Biathlon World Championships 2003 took place in the town of Khanty-Mansiysk. Khanty-Mansiysk has hosted smaller-scale biathlon competitions, but the World Championships required a significant upgrade of the existing local telecommunications infrastructure. Ugra Telecom, the local service provider, had to roll out a wide variety of new services to support the large number of athletes, journalists and spectators who were to converge on the town. Fast Rollout of New ServicesUgra Telecom selected RAD's Multiservice Access Platform (MAP) to ensure quick and cost-effective access at the point-of-presence (POP), for the provisioning of multiple new services over an existing SDH backbone. Working together with Ugra Telecom on the project was Informsviaz, a veteran RAD partner in Russia, which installed the equipment and arranged for its prompt delivery. 
To accommodate the event, the town built a campus of buildings and sports facilities, complete with the necessary infrastructure, including new skiing courses, rifle ranges, a viewing stand for an audience of ten thousand people, cabins for 22 television and radio companies and their commentators and technical staffs, as well as a state-of-the-art press center that would provide workplaces for 200 journalists. Communications services also had to be upgraded at the Khanty-Mansiysk airport. Additional passport control counters had to be opened at the airport to process the international visitors, and high quality Internet and voice communications provided the highest quality of service to the guests arriving to the championship. Generates New Revenues at Low CostThe RAD solution included the company's FCD-E1M network termination unit (NTU), the Megaplex-2104 multiservice access multiplexer and the DXC-10A access concentrator. "By deploying specialized equipment, MAP is able to offer a winning deployment strategy that quickly generates income without incurring substantial infrastructure costs," explains Michael Soukonnik, Director of Sales for Russia and the CIS at RAD Data Communications. 
The arrangements for the event were highly commended by Anders Besseberg, President of the International Biathlon Union, and Vyacheslav Fetisov, Russia's Chairman of the State Committee of Physical Culture and Sports. Reliable operation of RAD products made a noticeable contribution to the success of this event. 
| 
