Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Some 103 million manats (about $131 million) have been allocated for the implementation of a broadband Internet development project in Azerbaijan in 2013, Communications and IT Minister Ali Abbasov has said.

The amount was allocated by the Communications and Information Technologies Ministry and the Oil Fund under the "Fiber to Home" model development in 2013, Abbasov said Tuesday at a Cabinet of Ministers meeting dedicated to the results of social and economic development in 2012 and the country's future challenges.

The project is profitable and will be implemented in three phases, Abbasov said. Starting from 2014, around 30-35 percent of the total project cost will be provided by reinvestment.

The main goal of the project is to provide remote regions of the country with broadband Internet with a speed of 10 to 100 Mbit/s and expand the number of users to 85 percent. Thus, Azerbaijan will reach the level of developed countries on this indicator by 2017.

The project envisions a phased transfer of the operator's regional telecommunications center to the Next Generation Network (NGN), alternate routing of optical telecommunication lines and construction of high-speed IP-lines based on MPLS technology over a DWDM network.

The possibility of using GPON technology is considered in order to bring optical telecommunication lines to the end-users in major cities, while using CDMA 1x EV-DO and WiMAX standards is mulled to provide broadband services to people living in remote regions of the country.

To date, automatic telephone systems of regional telecommunication centers have been replaced by electronic systems. The length of fiber-optic lines laid by the Aztelekom production association since the beginning of 2012 to connect such systems has reached 2,000 kilometers.

The creation of broadband infrastructure has drawn the interest of private providers, encouraging them to expand their business in the regions. 19 operators are currently providing internet services outside the capital city of Baku.

Seven providers are involved in the project on the development of broadband services, initiated by Aztelekom. Owing to the efforts of these providers optical communication lines with a total length of 570 kilometers have been laid in rural areas.

Azerbaijan has maintained its leading position among the CIS countries in terms of broadband Internet penetration over the past three years, Abbasov said.

According to him, Internet penetration rates increased from 65 to 70 percent in 2012. Operations were conducted to improve the quality of data transmission services. The capacity of international communication channels more than doubled compared to 2011 and prices were reduced by 35 percent.

At present, Internet fees for connection speed of 1 Mbit/s account for about 3 percent of the average wage in Azerbaijan. For comparison's sake, the fees are up to 20 percent of wages in developing countries.

Azerbaijan became the ninth among European countries and 37th in the world where the 4G network has been deployed.

According to Abbasov, there are 110 mobile phones per every 100 people in the country. Azerbaijan was fully covered by the mobile network for the first time among the CIS countries in 2010. Currently, the majority of mobile users are also Internet users.