OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS

Within the next month, it is planned to launch the fibre-optic line Europe Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) through our country. Implemented on the initiative of Russia, Iran and Oman, the project promises considerable benefits to our country in terms of the development of IP-infrastructure, reduction of the cost of Internet traffic and transit bonuses. And after the Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) project initiated by Azerbaijan is implemented in two years' time, our country will gain status as a key information centre of the South Caucasus and the Caspian region.

Attractive participation

Three years ago, our country was involved in a major international project - laying the fibre-optic cable Europe Persia Express Gateway (EPEG). The initiators of this project - Russia's Rostelecom, Iran's Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC), Oman's Omantel, as well as the British company Cable & Wireless (C & W) - are laying a cable with a capacity of up to 3.2 Tbit/s and a total length of six thousand miles. The cost of the project, according to preliminary data, is estimated at $ 200-250 million. Originating in Frankfurt, Germany, this line will stretch to Oman passing through the territory of three transit countries - Poland, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, which are not direct members of the EPEG consortium.

The participation of our country in this project began in May 2009 with the conclusion of an agreement on the creation of the first Azerbaijani-Russian-Iranian joint venture (JV) in the field of ICT. In particular, documents were signed to establish a joint venture on a parity basis between the Russian company Synterra and JSC Azertelekom. The new joint venture, known as C-Ring Telecom, was created in order to create the infrastructure of the EPEG segment passing through the territory of our country, as well as the subsequent completion of the fibre-optic transmission lines of the Caspian basin states. Over the past three years, investing more than $ 17.5 million, the joint venture laid a cross-border fibre-optic switch in the Derbent-Quba area, creating an international link with a capacity of over 10 Gbit/s. The new gateway supports international communications, the rental of main channels, services based on the IP MPLS network, and access to the Internet, the data centre and distributing call-centre.

Subsequently, Rostelecom and the domestic operator Delta Telecom became operators of the Azerbaijani-Russian segment of the EPEG project. All the work on the Azerbaijani section of EPEG highway has been completed, and the testing of the network now continues. In parallel, the construction of an additional backup route has started, which also passes through the territory of our country. Work on the sections of the main line in other countries is practically completed: cabling is currently under way through the Strait of Hormuz to connect the Iranian and Omani segments of the fibre-optic line. Actually, the fact that this maritime area is not ready resulted in the ceremony being postponed from May to July this year. It is expected that the official opening of the EPEG line will be held within the next month at the International IP Transit Summit 2012 organized by Iran.

"The participation of Delta Telecom in the EPEG project will allow better use of the fibre-optic infrastructure in Azerbaijan in order to create a new transit route and significantly improve our country's connection to the international Internet network," Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ali Abbasov said. According to him, this route is the shortest alternative to connecting Europe and the Middle East through underwater cables. It is equally important that the project is assessed as part of the strategy of transforming our country into a technology hub - a key information centre of the Caspian region.

In support of TASIM

The successful participation of our country in the EPEG project will provide strong support for the implementation of an international initiative such as the trans-Eurasian super-information line. About three and a half years ago, during the BakuTel-2008 international telecommunications exhibition, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) initiated the TASIM project, which provides for the connection of 20 European and Asian countries to a high-speed information network. Azerbaijan's interest in laying TASIM is dictated by the number of objective factors. Despite the favourable geographical location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, our country is away from the world's Internet centres, and there are no backbones (main fibre-optic IT-channels) on its territory specifically designed for Internet traffic. Therefore, Azerbaijan has to use Internet traffic supplied through the internal networks of several transit countries, which greatly increases its cost. Unlike existing schemes, the TASIM international project envisages the establishment of an independent optical backbone - the most effective way to increase traffic coming into our country and to reduce the prices for Internet services. The second but no less important advantage of this initiative will be the supply of massive amounts of transit traffic, which ensures a considerable profit for our country - a future shareholder of the TASIM project.

Over the past few years, the TASIM project has received political support from leading countries and international organizations. For example, in late 2009 the project was unanimously approved at the 64th session of the UN General Assembly, and subsequently presented to potential investors at several major international exhibitions and forums. Political support for the project was expressed by the United States, Kazakhstan, Georgia, India, Iran, Ukraine, Belarus, Malaysia, Egypt and several other states. By the middle of this year, the first phase of intergovernmental negotiations on the creation of a consortium consisting of the Azerbaijani company Azertelekom, Russia's Rostelecom, Kazakhstan's Kaz-TransCom, Turkish TurkTelecom and China's ChinaTelecom was completed, and in parallel, negotiations with other project participants were expedited.

According to the primary sketch of the project developed by the American company Booz & Allen, it is planned to provide mixed public and commercial funding for the creation of such an extended optical line. After the formal establishment of the consortium, the implementation of all plans will require about 2-2.5 years. The main line will start in the central IP-hubs of Germany and will then run through Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and will be completed in China.

In general, the networks of TASIM-operators involved in the project are sufficiently developed, and it is planned to lay new cable segments only in a few areas with an insufficient bandwidth. It is expected that most of the work on the technical equipment of the main line will be completed by the end of next year. In particular, Azerbaijani-Kazakh talks on laying the Caspian sector of the TASIM fibre-optic line are successfully moving forward. Given the presence of the extensive optic line Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) in our country, its underwater segment will run from our Siyazan to Kinderli in Kazakhstan. It is noteworthy that the construction of this 380-kilometre underwater segment of the fibre-optic cable should have materialized as early as 1999, but it was postponed for many years due to unsuccessful negotiations with partners on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. The connection of the western and eastern coasts of the Caspian Sea with an underwater optic line would have made our country a major transit link connecting users at a distance of 24,000 kilometres - from Shanghai to Frankfurt-am-Main.

Today, however, taking into account the imminent formation of the TASIM consortium, the negotiation process on the resuscitation of the unfinished section of TAE takes on a new meaning. "Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have signed all protocols and agreed on all issues relating to the project of laying the underwater section of the optical cable. At the present time, providers of technical solutions are being selected: among the options under consideration are companies from China, Norway and Great Britain, which have extensive experience in the laying of undersea fibre-optic cables," said the executive director for infrastructure projects at the Kazakh company KazTransCom, Aleksandr Kislitsyn. According to him, suppliers of equipment will soon be agreed upon and a tender will be announced in the near future. As for the completion of the work on laying the offshore section of the cable, according to Kislitsyn, a lot depends on events occurring in Europe, the Middle East and global markets, which can make certain adjustments to investments in the project. In the very protracted scenario, the construction of the Trans-Caspian segment of the cable line will be completed in August next year.

By that time, the consortium will have been formed and work will have begun on the technical equipment of other parts of the TASIM line. "The first meeting of the working group on the project was held in Qabala in the summer of last year, and the second meeting in November of 2011 in Turkey. The working group is currently finalizing the final version of the documents, which will provide national telecommunications operators with state support in the process of joining the consortium and implementing the TASIM project," Minister Ali Abbasov noted. Potential participants in the project expect to hold the final forum before the end of this year, which is expected to create an international consortium and identify issues of equity participation, funding and technical implementation of the TASIM project.