CETIN Group, a wholesale provider of telecommunications infrastructure services and part of PPF Group, and NEC subsidiary NEC Europe have announced the signing of a large-scale multi-country network modernisation project – with a specific focus on network security. In a joint press release, it was announced that using solutions supplied by Fortinet and Cellusys, NEC will provide an end-to-end modernisation of CETIN’s networks in Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria as well as Telenor’s network in Montenegro. The statement notes that the project has been undertaken to ‘enhance’ the infrastructure provider’s networks in its ‘major territories in Central and South Eastern Europe’.
Under the project, NEC Europe will supply solutions such as: Telco Cloud Core security solutions with capabilities to provide protection and zone segmentation between the Cloud Core VNFs; Management security solutions providing security for the management of traffic, both within ‘Telco’ and ‘Enterprise’ parts of the network; Telco Gi Firewalls as a perimeter security solution for the mobile data network; Telco Signalling and GRXs security solutions, providing security between the Core network and other operators for interconnect solutions, such as IP-based interconnect and GPRS Roaming exchange; Enterprise network security solutions with threat prevention; and a VPN Gateway solution. In addition, Fortinet’s security-driven networking approach will reportedly provide ‘tight integration between its network infrastructure and the security architecture’.