Eurasia to launch super information highway project

Eurasia plans to launch a Trans- Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) project this year to boost Internet connection speed and provide qualified Internet services, experts said here on Thursday. The project aims to build a transnational fiber-optic line covering China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Germany. The Reserve North transit line will pass through the territory of Russia, Ukraine and Poland, with a major transit route from Frankfurt to Hong Kong. TASIM is estimated to cost about 200 million U.S. dollars and complete in 2016, according to experts attending the 13th International Caspian Telecom Summit in Istanbul. China Telecom, Kazakhstan's Kaztranscom, Russia's Rostelecom, Turkey's Turktelekom and Pantel from the EU have declared their partnership in the project. Experts described TASIM as a long-term initiative, which will be implemented in two stages. In the first phase the leading regional countries and operators will create a major Internet transit infrastructure, linking the West and the East. This transit infrastructure will allow TASIM to correspond to commercially attractive and rapidly growing international market for IP Internet transit. In the second phase of the project, new fiber-optic lines will be constructed and the existing lines will be upgraded. This phase will be carried out in accordance with the UN mandate. TASIM project will contribute to create an open information society in the region, increase the speed of Internet connection and provide qualified Internet services. The length of TASIM will amount to 11,000 kilometers, with an initial network bandwidth of up to two Tbit/s.