GNM completes 400G infrastructure upgrade in Sofia
Author: Joe Peck
GNM (Global Network Management), a backbone internet provider and telecom operator, has completed the modernisation of its point of presence in Sofia, Bulgaria, deploying the Arista 7800R3 – a modular, carrier-grade platform with native 400G capability.
The upgrade is part of GNM’s ongoing strategy to strengthen its optical backbone and meet increasing interconnection demands across south-eastern Europe.
The Sofia node now plays a key role in supporting high-throughput transit traffic from the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and the Caucasus.
With two fully independent DWDM paths – routed via Belgrade and a diverse route through Romania – the site has been engineered to provide path diversity, automated failover, and consistent low-latency performance.
It is fully integrated into GNM’s meshed DWDM backbone, which provides onward connectivity to major European hubs including Bratislava, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, and Stockholm.
The node also offers access to a full range of services, including high-capacity 100G and 400G DWDM transport, direct and remote access to GNM-IX, IP Transit with BGP community-based policy control, and Layer 2 services backed by strict service-level guarantees.
“The Sofia upgrade is an important step in the ongoing development of GNM’s core infrastructure in the region,” comments Alex Surkov, Head of Development at GNM.
“One of the first customers to use the new platform was a European network operator that provisioned a 100G DWDM service over both available paths, along with a GNM-IX peering connection.
“The deployment delivered a measurable reduction in latency to Frankfurt, around 18%, and significantly improved recovery times during incidents. It’s a clear example of how infrastructure investment directly enhances service performance for our clients.”
