Fiber optic internet coverage in Azerbaijan seen to hit 60% in 2017
By Nigar Orujova
Access to the internet via fiber optic lines is forecast to cover approximately 60 percent of the country's internet market, reaching its peak in 2017, Galib Gurbanov, Chairman of the Azerbaijani internet community, ISOC, said.
This will be facilitated by the implementation of projects on the development of broadband internet "Fiber-to-the-Home", which will start in 2014, and will cover 2014-2016, he added.
"Currently, the fiber optic internet access penetration rate is about 10 percent. Despite their dominating position in the market today, the ADSL technologies are gradually becoming outdated, giving a place to optical communication channels. As for the dialup, this type of connection is not popular among users," Gurbanov said.
ISOC also forecasts wireless and ADSL access technologies will account for 30 percent and 15 percent of the market, respectively.
Azerbaijan's ICT Ministry expects all settlements of Azerbaijan will be provided with high-speed internet access until 2017.
About 40 internet service providers are functioning in Azerbaijan at present. Some 70 percent of the population uses internet, of them 35 percent is the users of the broadband internet services.
The ultimate goal of the project, with total cost over $570 million, is to supply the entire country, including its distant rural areas, with high-speed internet with the range of 10-100 Mbit/s, and raise the number of high-speed internet users to 85 percent, which will allow Azerbaijan to reach the level of the developed countries by 2017.
To date, the average speed of incoming traffic in Azerbaijan amounts to 5.48 Mbit/s, according to the NetIndex rating of Ookla company.
This figure reached 9.21 Mbit/s in Baku and 3.33 Mbit/s in Sumgait, the country's third largest city.
Azerbaijan holds 112th place in the rating of incoming traffic and 92nd place in the rating of outgoing traffic.