Infrastructure

Home page

Infrastructure

Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan agree to lay Trans-Asia-Europe cable across Caspian seabed

10 September 2008 16:45 (UTC +04:00)

BakÄ±. Tamara Griqoryeva - APA. On September 25-26 the Informatization Coordination Council of Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications will discuss the proposed construction of a segment of the Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic cable line across the Caspian Sea.
Ali Abbasov, the Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, said one of the main issues is to lay a seabed optical cable between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The intergovernmental commission has already approved the project. The final decision will be taken during BakuTel Exhibition in Baku on November 11-14.
The TAE project envisions a 16,800-mile telecommunications line through 20 countries, from Frankfurt am Main in Germany to Shanghai in China. The TAE fiber optic line is designed to transmit voice, data, fax and video information.
Azerbaijanâ€™s and Kazakhstan have signed a protocol for construction of the Caspian segment.
By calculations in 1999, the cost of the project to lay the cable on the sea bottom between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan was about $10 million but the cost may change after recalculations.
The route includes cable lines Baku (Azerbaijan)-Astara (Iran) 345km, Baku-Russia 250km and Siyazan (Azerbaijan)-Aktau (Kazakhstan) 400km.