Many of us still remember times when it took several hours to download a small, three megabyte file, for example a song. But today a couple of seconds is enough for this: we watch movies online, play online games together with people thousands of kilometers away from us. Internet speed in our country continues growing faster, and Beeline has recently announced an enviable speed of 100 Mb/s for residents of Yerevan.

We talked with company representatives to find out how Beeline achieved such speeds, and what the customers should expect in the future.

Not a step forward, but a leap

Beeline has not stopped upgrading its networks over the past few years. The mobile networks were modernized not so long ago, and they installed the latest equipment to raise the quality of communication to a completely new level, Maxim Levin, Chief Technology Officer of Beeline Armenia, told Armenian News- NEWS.am.

Later on, experts began to modernize the fixed network. Over 200 employees of the company updated the network and equipment in nine months throughout the city and laid over 500 kilometers of cables to provide Yerevan residents with faster and higher-quality Internet. For comparison, the length of Armenia from north to south is about 360 kilometers.

“About 80% of households in Yerevan can connect to the Internet at speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, and the speed will be even higher in the future,” he said. “The modernization of the fixed network for us is not just another step forward, but a big leap. Now we can offer new and modern services to our subscribers.”

Let’s connect everyone

Video game fans must have heard of the acclaimed Death Stranding, where the main character Sam had to connect everyone to the network. Beeline employees faced similar problem after the completion of the network modernization. The prospect of having a faster Internet was attractive to many, and the number of clients who wanted to connect to one of the packages offered by the company turned out to be much higher than one could imagine. So, they needed time to connect everyone as soon as possible, so as not to make subscribers wait.

For Sam it was hard to get to his destination, Beeline’s task was tougher. They had to connect the client to the network without compromising the interior and exterior of his house/office, and to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Our biggest challenge was to connect everyone,” he noted. “We mobilized all our strengths and capabilities to connect customers to our services as quickly as possible, so that people could celebrate New Year with the new high-speed Beeline Internet.”

It is not an easy task to quickly connect tens of thousands of customers at once, especially if they live in downtown Yerevan with many historical buildings where you cannot just drill a hole for a cable. The experts had to look for a solution for each building.

To speed up the work, it was decided to hold an unusual competition among the company employees: the specialists who were involved in connecting the subscribers were divided into teams of four people, and prizes were waiting for the team that  managed to connect the largest number of subscribers. It was necessary to work quickly and to provide high quality services. If a client suddenly complained about the work done, the group would lose one point.

According to Hayk Tarumyan, who coordinated the work of the groups, they had 14,500 clients in more than 28 weeks; all stations starting with index 5 were switched to VDSL technology (VeryhighspeedDigitalSubscriberLine), which allows ultrafast Internet access at a speed of up to 100 megabits per second to the apartments without changing the infrastructures in the building.

However, it was more difficult to work with businesses, because even a 15-20-minute shutdown of the Internet for banks, embassies, and ticket offices could cause serious problems. Thus, the specialists tried to carry out the work as quickly as possible, choosing the most convenient time for reconnection so that the client’s work would not be affected.

Next steps

“The modernization of the fixed network was possible thanks to teamwork. I am pleased to realize that today we have a team that can do such global projects here,” he said. “Today our life is fully connected with the Internet: smartphones have replaced books, cameras, music players; TVs and refrigerators have become smart. All these devices require good Internet connection, and we do our best to provide our subscribers with better connection.”

According to him, the modernization of the network in Yerevan is only the first step (or, rather, a leap). In the future, just as during the last 14 years, Beeline plans to invest in the Armenian infrastructure and to provide high-quality Internet not only in large cities, where these investments quickly pays off, but also in other settlements throughout the country.