Baku, Astana speed up creation of optical bridge across Caspian Sea Analysis by Caliber.Az

Almost three years have passed since the start of the Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan Trans-Caspian Fiber Optic (TCFO) project, which provides for the laying of an underwater fibre-optic communication line that will connect the shores of the Caspian Sea. The coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn caused by it somewhat delayed the initiative's implementation. Nevertheless, at the recent Digital Bridge forum in Astana, TCFO was given an additional impetus - a memorandum of strategic partnership was signed between its operators AzerTelecom and Kazakhtelecom. And recently, Kazakh Digital Development Minister Bagdat Musin outlined the stages of the project, the start of which is scheduled for 2023.

The idea of connecting the western and eastern shores of the Caspian Sea with an optical Internet cable, put forward at the end of the last century, for many reasons, turned out to be one of the most time-consuming, unrealized ICT projects in the post-Soviet space. This undertaking was plagued by setbacks, despite several specific projects supported by the governments of the regional countries. One of them was the international project initiated by the EU in 1999 to create a Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fibre optic line. However, due to several subjective reasons, the TAE cable laid through the South Caucasus in the direction of the Central Asian countries was stretched not along the seabed, but overland - through Iran.

Another attempt to link the western and eastern coasts of the Caspian Sea with optical lines was planned to be implemented within the framework of the Trans-Eurasian Super Information Highway (TASIM) project initiated by Azerbaijan about 14 years ago, which provides for the unification of more than 20 countries in Europe and Asia with a high-speed information network stretching 24,000 kilometres - from Shanghai to Frankfurt am Main. Subsequently, TASIM received support at the level of the UN and several EU countries, and it was possible to implement some of its elements, including increasing the capacity of Azerbaijan's backbone Internet cables (backbones) leading to the West. But, alas, this attempt did not accelerate the implementation of the Trans-Caspian cable project.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, within the framework of the bilateral agenda, conducted lengthy negotiations on laying the marine optical segment: a few years ago, the two countries' telecommunications companies agreed to create a consortium, and a joint working group was established, and in March 2019, a corresponding bilateral intergovernmental agreement was signed and ratified. By November of the same year, all obstacles to the implementation of the Trans-Caspian optical project had been overcome, and within the framework of a solemn ceremony, the start of the implementation stage was announced.

The TCFO project is transcontinental and is aimed at forming a digital telecommunications corridor between Europe and Asia. The laying of a cable with a length of about 380 kilometres along the bottom of the Caspian Sea will be carried out by Kazakhtelecom and the Azerbaijani telecom operator AzerTelecom.

Initially, it was expected that the optical communication line would be put into operation by late 2021, but the negative caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis made adjustments to the work schedule, and more than a year ago, the relevant agency of Kazakhstan - Transtelecom announced new deadlines: work on the technical part of the project should begin in 2022. However, as Kazakh Digital Development Minister Bagdat Musin said the other day, speaking at the event "ICT Week Uzbekistan – 2022" in Samarkand, work on the TCFO project will start next year. According to the minister, the design of the project is currently being finalised, final studies will follow, and then the design work will be completed and the laying of an optical cable along the bottom of the Caspian Sea will begin. In the updated version of the project, the length of the main cable will exceed 340 km, and a 330-km backup line will be laid, which will stretch from the Kazakh port of Kuryk to the Absheron village of Buzovna near Baku.

Musin stressed that all Central Asian countries are interested in the speedy implementation of the Trans-Caspian optical initiative since the availability of alternative routes will allow providing better broadband Internet services even in the most remote geographical points of the region.

And judging by the latest negotiations at the government level, this project will not be shelved. The guarantee for this, in particular, is the memorandum on strategic partnership on the TCFO project signed by AzerTelecom and Kazakhtelecom at the end of September within the framework of the annual international technology forum Digital Bridge. The current state of affairs and prospects for the implementation of Trans-Caspian cable projects were also discussed by the heads of government of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on October 6 in Moscow during the II Caspian Economic Forum.

The involvement of Ashgabat in the negotiations is an extremely important moment, indicating the imminent start of the implementation of the interstate agreement signed on November 28, 2019, between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The agreement provides for the laying of an optical cable line with a length of 300 km and a capacity of 2-4 terabits/ across the Caspian Sea, and in the spring of 2020, the document was ratified by the Azerbaijani parliament and approved by the head of state. It is expected that AzerTelecom and Turkmentelecom will soon start negotiations on the preparation of a feasibility study and an action plan for the project, the implementation of which will improve high-speed Internet traffic not only in Turkmenistan but also in the direction of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

It is noteworthy that the initiatives on the Trans-Caspian cable project attracted Tashkent and Bishkek. A year ago, within the framework of the fourth annual CIS GCCM 2021 conference in Astana, participants of the TCFO consortium, as well as telecommunications operators - Elkat LLC and Telegraph 42 Management Gmbh LLC, representing Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, respectively, signed relevant memorandums of cooperation. And in December last year, the TCFO project was replenished with another partner - a memorandum of cooperation was signed with Turkish Türk Telekom International.

At the same time, the western vector of the optical highway of the Digital Silk Road is developing: Its initiator, the international group of companies NEQSOL Holding, last year acquired Caucasus Online, one of the largest telecommunications companies in Georgia, which owns a fibre-optic cable line laid along the bottom of the Black Sea and provides transit of Internet traffic from Europe to the South Caucasus. In the near future, this line will be docked with the TCFO cable infrastructure. It is expected that NEQSOL Holding will also take part in the Digital Silk Way project implemented by AzerTelecom, which is about creating and managing a new end-to-end IP network between Central Asia and Europe using the existing backbone infrastructure of the Italian company Sparkle, extending from Türkiye to Italy and further to all major European Internet hubs. In this regard, in April 2022, the Azerbaijani operator AzerTelecom signed a memorandum of cooperation with the network service provider Sparkle.

The participation of an international group and Italian partners contributes to accelerating the implementation of the Eurasian cable infrastructure project, which will attract large volumes of traffic to provide a variety of IP services to future users of this network, which, in turn, will accelerate the process of return on investment. The prospects and commercial attractiveness of the Digital Silk Way project are also evidenced by the fact that in 2020 at the Global Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum in the United States, this initiative was selected as one of the top five strategic infrastructure projects in Asia.