OPTICAL INTEGRATION

Azerbaijan is ready to expand cooperation with Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia for the implementation of in-ternational projects in network infrastructure. The lifting of economic sanctions on Iran expected shortly will give a second wind to a number of regional projects in which Azerbaijan is a leading participant.  In particular, we are speaking about implementing the second phase of the Europe Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) project and forming Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM). 

EPEG: Second Phase

A little less than five years ago, the country got involved in a very big international project to lay the fibre optic trunk cable of Europe Persia Express Gateway (EPEG). The project estimated at 200m dollars was initiated by Russia's Rostelecom, Iran's Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC), Oman's Omantel and the British company Cable & Wireless (C&W). In late 2012, they completed the laying of a cable with a designed throughput of up to 3.2 Tbps and a total length of 10,000 km including is branches in the transit states. Originating from Germany's Frankfurt, the line stretches as far as Oman running across three transit states: Poland, Ukraine and Azerbaijan which are not direct stockholders in the EPEG consortium. 

It is an important advantage for Azerbaijan that its participation in the EPEG project will provide the country with an up-to-date network infrastructure and modernize its switching facilities involved in the project. Azerbaijan is represented in this project by the Delta Telecom company whose network structure is responsible for traffic delivery in the republic. Experts estimate the annual stability ratio of Azerbaijan's EPEG segment at 99.99 per cent, according to the SLA (Service Level Agreement) indicator. The SLA standard specifies parameters, such as service availability index, compliance with fault management requirements and performance metrics including average and maximum throughput and others. So, the Azerbaijani segment of the fibre optic line deserves a lot of praise for its quality parameters and communication stability.  

However, despite the potentially high bandwidth capacity of the EPEG cable system, its operating capacity is about 540 gigabits per second. In other words, only about one-sixth of the system's capacity is used in operation. For the EPEG fibre optic system to work at full load and make more profits for the consortium participants, it is necessary to increase the volumes of data traffic involving traffic from the vast and densely populated region of India and South East Asia. 

Over the latest period, work has been carried out to lay an EPEG trunk cable to the shores of India. Efforts have also been taken for the technical renovation of the Iranian segment of the communications line. The implementation of those initiatives has been delayed by a series of financial and technical problems. This year though, against the backdrop of expected easing of international sanctions, Iran has announced its readiness to enter on the second phase of the cable project. "Work on the project goes at a good pace" and, after determining tariffs for traffic transit, "in the near future we will launch the second phase of the EPEG project," Mahmoud Vaezi, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Iran and co-chairman of Azerbaijan-Iran intergovernmental commission, said recently. 

The second phase of the project envisages connecting the EPEG trunk cable to the undersea segments of Europe-India Gateway (EIG), another international trunk cable. This project was promoted by the British operator Cable & Wireless Worldwide and two US companies - AT&T and Verizon. Until recently, these Western companies could not invest in the development of the EPEG project because of the sanctions against Iran. 

Final version of TASIM

It is noteworthy that integration processes strengthened in the Eurasian space lately and Iran's interest in expanding its economic ties with other states in the region will have a favourable effect on the implementation of another, no less important initiative in network infrastructure development. We are speaking about the TASIM project to connect 20-plus countries in Europe and Asia from Frankfurt to Hong Kong with a high-speed network. This project was initiated by the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies (MCHT) of Azerbaijan some seven years ago. The signing in 2013 of the Baku Memorandum on mutual understanding in the implementation of the TASIM project was a very important milestone in developing the project. The document became the starting point for setting up a consortium, outlined the contours of further implementation of the project and specified participants' powers and roles, their financial expenditures and legal status. 

Over the passed years, the following companies have joined in this initiative: Rostelecom (Russia), KazTransCom (Kazakhstan), Turk-Telecom (Turkey), ChinaTelecom (China) and AzInTelekom. During its first, now completed, phase, the region's leading countries and operators were working to involve companies ready to invest in the core Internet transit infrastructure connecting the West and the East. The second phase being implemented on the basis of a UN mandate, the created infrastructure is to be used to provide Internet connection at reasonable prices for Eurasian countries having no direct access to international hubs. 

The next step will be to build new segments of high-throughput fibre-optic infrastructure. Thus Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are expected to sign a contract in the near future for the construction of an undersea segment of TASIM in the Caspian Sea. The laying of a communications cable between Azerbaijan's town of Siyazan and Aktau port in Kazakhstan is scheduled tentatively for 2016.  

It is expected that key documents will be signed at the regular BakuTel-2015 international telecommunications exhibition in December this year, outlining final versions for the development of the TASIM project. It should not be ruled out that the operators will approve a separate agreement on the construction and operation of TASIM with finalized technical parameters of the project. Neighbouring Iran which is not an official participant in TASIM is also showing an interest in the project. The Islamic Republic is expressing readiness for all-out participation in telecommunication integration proce-sses involving the region's states. "We want to cooperate with Azerbaijan on the TASIM project and I am ready to discuss this issue with Minister of Communications and High Techno-logies of Azerbaijan," said Iranian minister of Com-munications Mahmoud Vaezi. "I believe that at this moment, the countries are interested in connection through various channels and ways," he said. 

The favourable situation in the region has enabled Azerbaijan to take part in all accomplished and prospective projects to lay trunk optic communication lines. The implementation of these projects and connection to international Internet hubs have produced phenomenal results. By the end of last year, the volume of Internet traffic in the national segment of AzNet exceeded 300 gigabits per second; and today many neighbouring countries have access to the World Wide Web using the transit capabilities of Azerbaijan. For comparison, the figure for 2008 was 6 gigabits per second. Thus a 50-fold increase was achieved just in seven years. 

Within the next one or two years, as the TASIM trunk line is commissioned and the second phase of the EPEG project is implemented, the country will gain status as a technology hub, a key data centre in the Caspian region. This promises great profits both from network transit and from data processing and storage in the servers of the region's largest data centre. MCHT specialists are going to put into operation the Tier 3 Data Centre in the next few months. Another advantage of backbones (main optic IP channels) across the country will be a tangible technical simplification of communication processes. This will reduce the cost of connection to the global Internet network which will allow consumers to reckon on more moderate tariffs for connection to the World Wide Web.