Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 13
By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:
Lifting sanctions against Iran will play an important role in strengthening cooperation of European telecommunications companies with this country within the framework of a large-scale international project EPEG (Europe-Persia Express Gateway), a source on the telecommunications market of Azerbaijan told Trend.
The sanctions against Iran are the main factor, because of which the companies, which are responsible for the commercial component of EPEG, cannot cooperate with this country, according to the source.
The members of the consortium, Omantel and British operator Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which today is owned by Vodafone, were actively promoting plans for construction of cable line EPEG in order to communicate with Europe and connect the unconnected subsea segments of EIG (Europe-India Gateway) pipeline. Two US operators, AT&T and Verizon, who participated in the EIG project, were forbidden to make direct investments in the construction of EPEG due to economic sanctions against Iran.
The underwater cable line EIG contributes to connecting India to EPEG, which had previously been the subject of negotiations between Iran and India. After connecting EPEG and EIG, Iran will be linked to India and other Asian countries with cable fiber optic backbone.
Length of the EPEG on the territory of Iran is more than 3,000 kilometers, and the country plans to use 10 percent of its resources.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Iran Mahmoud Vaezi told Trend earlier that Iran intends to set high tariffs for transit of traffic within the framework of the EPEG project, and the country's income from this project will be significant.
In June 2011, a consortium of four leading telecom carriers from four countries signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement for the new cable system - Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG). The new system with an initial capacity of 540 (54×10) Gbps was put in operation in December 2012.
The system passes from Frankfurt across Eastern Europe, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Persian Gulf to Barka in the Sultanate of Oman. The design capacity of the EPEG system is up to 3.2 Tbps with total length of approximately 10,000 kilometers, 9,500 kilometers of which is a terrestrial fiber cable.
Edited by CN