Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.10 / Trend G.Veliyev /
In order to bring the optic lines to villages, it is necessary to double the existing cabling infrastructure up to 3500 kilometres, spokesman for the Aztelekom production unit Vidadi Ismayilov told Trend on Friday.
As the company told Trend earlier today, the optical line extending along 65 kilometres has been laid mainly in rural areas due to efforts of private Internet service providers. Fibre-optic infrastructure currently covers 25 per cent of regional Azerbaijan villages.
"This year will be important for Aztelekom's broadband Internet. We plan to cover optical lines for an automatic-telephone system, which will be a base component for bringing broadband Internet to every house. This will expand customers' access to electronic services offered under the 'Electronic Azerbaijan' project," Mr Ismayilov said.
He said a number of works in this regard had already been implemented. One option is to attract private Internet service providers, since the project is currently being covered solely by Aztelekom and may be a long-term and more costly process.
"A number of providers have already expressed their desire to participate in this project and negotiations are being held with a number of companies. I believe the public will see fruitful cooperation between Aztelekom and the private sector very soon," Mr Ismayilov said.
He also said in January that the number of broadband connections in the Aztelekom network had increased to 6000. Currently, the network infrastructure operator allows connection more than 50,000 new subscribers and by the end of the year this figure will be increased several times.
Services of the AztelekomNet broadband Internet are provided in 52 of Azerbaijan's cities. All district centres are connected to the TAE (Trans-Asia-Europe) cable line.