TASIM – Trans-Eurasian Information Superhighway

5.6 TASIM – Trans-Eurasian Information Superhighway:

On December 21, 2009 the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted resolution (A/Res/64/186) entitled “Building connectivity through Trans - Eurasian Information Super Highway”. Aim of this project is to lay transnational optical fiber line covering the countries of Eurasia from Western Europe to Eastern Asia.

Furthermore, on December 21, 2012 the UN General Assembly adopted second resolution, which was supported by the UN Member states and was cosponsored by Afghanistan, Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Georgia, India, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United States.
On this range, discussions on “Improving Connectivity in Eurasia” were successfully organized within the framework of the establishment of the TASIM project component of the “Modernization of Sustainability and Efficiency of ICT infrastructure and ICT services in the Republic of Azerbaijan” Project during the 67^th session of the United Nations General Assembly that was held at the UN Headquarters in New York on September 4, 2013. Initial members of the TASIM Consortium are state-owned incumbents as follows:
A memorandum of understanding regarding the implementation of the Trans-Eurasia Information Superhighway (TASIM) project has been signed in Baku, Azerbaijan in December 2013. Five operators representing members states of TASIM consortium: China Telecom (China), KazTransCom (Kazakhstan), Rostelecom (Russia), Turk Telekom (Turkey) and Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology were the signatories. The memorandum reportedly sets out the responsibilities of the operators, as well as financial liabilities and legal status.

7. Consider beyond the highway

7.1 Rail and Power infrastructure:

Optical fiber beneath the train track for railway signaling or along the power grid for SCADA have become the preferred long distance transport medium of telecommunication industry. Fiber networks for signaling and SCADA are the integral component of rail and power networks. Therefore, they do not represent significant share in the overall investments of railway or power transmission projects. Recent advancements in transmission technology have effectively blurred the differences between alternative and conventional long-haul fiber optic transmission networks.

The railway and electricity networks traverse by populated area. Neither railway signaling nor SCADA is bandwidth intensive application. Therefore, the rail and power entities inevitably end up with surplus capacity in respective fiber network. Such captive capacity allures the telecom providers, especially in the developing countries, for various practical reasons. Civil works, associated with trenching across the remote locations to deploy fiber, is a major incremental expense. Increasingly upward cost of transporting the materials at sites is also punishing. Unquantifiable payments for ‘right of way’ not necessarily guarantee access to the site.
These issues often disrupt the deadline and budget of telecommunication transmission projects. That’s why sharing cross-sector telecommunication infrastructure is paramount in achieving ubiquity of infrastructure as a key step to universal service provision. The model of sharing the alternative infrastructure, however, varies from country-to-country. Few examples are given bellow.

7.2 TransTeleCom (TTK), Russia:

TransTeleCom (TTK) of Russia operates the country’s largest optical fiber network along the rail line, which spans 75,000-km with a bandwidth of 1.5 Tbps. Its network spans from the western enclave of Kaliningrad by the Baltic Sea to Sakhalin Island at the North Pacific. In September 2007 TTK began rendering services on the long-distance and international telecommunications market.

Service portfolio of TTK includes national private lines, international private lines, Internet access, digital circuits, IP VPN, GPRS IP VPN, virtual Ethernet channel, local telephone services, long-distance and international telephone communications along with Certification center services.
It is one of three leading alternative operators of fixed communication and provides 33% of long-distance leased circuit. It has 27% market share in IP backbone and 31% in the IP VPN segments. TTK also operates fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure covering an estimated 3.7 million Russian households. As of mid-February 2013, before the conclusion of the regional merger, TTK served approximately 1.1 million broadband subscribers.

7.3 RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.

RailTel Corporation is India’s one of the largest carrier-neutral telecom infrastructure providers. It has nationwide exclusive right of way to deploy OFC network along the 63,000 kilometers of railway track. Its 45,000 km OFC network presently connects over 4,500 townships and several rural habitats covering 70% of population. The network is supported by multiple of 10G/2.5G based STM-64/16 system rings.

RailTel also runs DWDM systems with 100G/400G capacity over 10,500 km of network. It will be further expanded to additional 14,000 km within 2014 to cover all major cities of the country. RailTel also has an MPLS network with core on 10G capacity along with NGN system to support various IP-enabled services.
RailTel offers a wide range of managed telecom services to Indian telecom market. The service includes managed lease lines, tower co-location, MPLS-based IP-VPN, Internet and NGN-based voice carriage services to telecom operators, Internet service providers, MSOs, enterprises, banks, government outfits, and educational institutions.
RailTel has deployed over 26 core links on 10G/2.5G capacity and 248 access links of 1G/100 Mbps capacity. Deployment of additional access and distribution links is in progress. It is also progressively entering into the enterprise solutions segment with special focus on government departments and educational institutions. Under the initiative, RailTel is creating data centers initially to provide data center and disaster recovery services to these customers.
RailTel has planned to launch various value-added services in the field of tele-presence, CDN, and a host of other network services for its enterprise customers. The company is upgrading its network infrastructure to provide high bandwidth capacities on 100G level. This infrastructure will support various broadband wireless access and 3G/4G service providers to deliver broadband nationwide including rural areas.

7.4 Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL)

The optical fiber network of PGCIL covers 206 cities and towns with about 25,000 km of fiber network. Of this, optical ground wire (OPGW) comprises about 16,500 km and underground OFC links of about 8500 km. The company has an intra-city OFC network in 68 cities. It has regional telecom centers at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru and a National NOC at New Delhi.

Its network covers remote and far-flung areas including the Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir. The OPGW network of PGCIL offers domestic leg to the international long distance carriers for connecting India’s next-door neighbors like Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
PGCIL is replacing ground wire with OPGW in some of the existing transmission lines. Main advantage of OPGW is inbuilt right of way, sturdy, secure, and reliable connectivity. Since there is no requirement for forest clearances, and OPGW installation is done live line without taking shut down on power transmission lines, faster rollouts are possible.
Currently, PGCIL is in the process of laying OPGW on various transmission lines under its load dispatch and communication schemes. Spare fibers on this network will also be available to expand its telecom network depending on demand from customers and can cover new cities and towns.
PGCIL's telecom network has multi-vendor equipment and is already upgrading capacity on its existing telecom network from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps on major routes. PGCIL is further expanding its telecom network, including the addition of VAS like MPLS-VPN.
7.5 Asia meets Europe through MEETS: On September 30, 2013 - Vodafone’s Qatar unit, du of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait’s Zain along with the country’s ISP named Zajil have formed a consortium – Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS). And optical power ground wire (OPGW) will be the vehicle during initial leg of its long distance terrestrial telecoms journey to Europe.
MEETS has rented 1,400-km OPGW from the power transmission grid of Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) interconnection authority for 15 years. The consortium will invest US$36 million to primarily inject 2300 Gbps capacity using 100G optical transport networks (OTN) technology. It will dramatically increase the resilience of regional telecom backbone.
MEETS is an open cable system, which aims to make regional connectivity less expensive and more competitive and, at the same time, offer customers an improved data connectivity experience.
MEETS network will run from Kuwait to Fujairah (UAE) via Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. Its final destination is Turkey via Iraq. The consortium is yet to disclose its mode of transport while crossing the highly challenging terrains of Iraq. OPGW across the diverse routes of Iraqi power transmission grid would be the safest option.

8. Policy recommendations for ITU

8.1 Promote open-access optical fiber network along Asian Highway: The terrestrial fiber optic links across Southeast Asia, notably the GMS network, are owned and operated by the dominant carriers. Their bandwidth capacity is low and the carriers are reluctant to give access to the competitors in the terrestrial networks. As a result, the third-party carriers are unable to offer any competitive bandwidth to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Therefore, deploying fiber along the Asian Highway will not achieve its goal unless the equitable access to this infrastructure is fundamentally guaranteed. The introduction of open access in Singapore and Hong Kong may be considered as role-models.
8.2 Persuade synergy between Asian Highway and TASIM: The proponents of TASIM are also the members of Asian Highway. Since highways are the long distance carriers’ preferred right-of-way, the TASIM network is expected to be deployed along the Asian Highway. Therefore, the Asian Highway members should explore the opportunity of getting integrated with the TASIM Consortium. It will enhance multilateral profile to TASIM initiative and the network will be expanded by manifolds. The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed the formation and functionalities of TASIM. Asian Highway, being fostered by another UN outfit, i.e., ESCAP, will greatly supplement each other.
8.3 Assessing the state of international transmission network: Outage has been a common phenomenon in the global infrastructure of Internet. Carriers, however, rarely disclose any such occurrence unless it is attributed to any natural disaster. And the regulators lack the tool to monitor such outage of networks as well. Such nondisclosure deceives the consumers. It also keeps the policymakers unaware of the fragility of national telecom networks. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the “health” of country-wise Internet to sensitize the policymakers about necessary reforms.
8.4 Assess the cost to build and operate a Eurasian terrestrial network: Assessing the capital expenditure as well as the operating cost of Eurasian telecom network is essential. It will provide clarity to the operators, vendors and lenders of this project. The modality of special-purpose vehicle, build-operate-transfer or outsourcing through management contract will depend on the budget.
8.5 Opportunities of using cross-sector telecoms infrastructure: Today’s transmission solutions have effectively blurred functional distinctions between a submarine and terrestrial network. The example of EPEG network, which is a combination of submarine and terrestrial cables, should prompt the policymakers to revisit their perception. Similarly, the 75,000-km. fiber network of Russia’s TransTeleCom (TTK) or the oil-rich Arab country’s proposed MEETS network demonstrate the futility of differentiating the potential of optical fiber in multi-sectoral operation.

Endnotes

1^ “The State of Broadband 2013: Universalizing Broadband.” A report by the Broadband Commission, September 2013.

2^ "Telecom Industry Fiber Optic Building Spree- Will It Lead to Another Fiber Glut?" Michael Weiss, April 3, 2012. Michael Weiss's blog.

3^ “Submarine Telecoms Industry Report 2013.” Terabit Consulting. March 2013.

4^ “Pan-European long-haul fiber demand increased 300%; operators to deploy 16.7 million fiber-km by 2002.” PR Newswire.

5^ OECD Broadband Portal.

6^ "Data Center Risk Index 2013." Cushman & Wakefield , May 17, 2013.

7^ “Reforming Europe's Telecoms Regulation to Enable the Digital Single Market.” The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO). July 19, 2013.

8^ “U.S. No. 4 in LTE penetration survey.” RCR Wireless, September 25, 2013.

9^ “The Global Information Technology Report Report 2013.” World Economic Forum. April 7, 2013.

10^ TeleGeography's Global Internet Geography. Second Quarter, 2013.

11^ “News Analysis: Broadband blueprint to facilitate China's economic restructuring.” Xinhua, August 19, 2013.

12^ “International Sharing: Singapore’s Experience, GSR discussion paper, February 2008.” ITU.

13^ “Legislative Council Paper No. CB(1)1289/09-10(04)”, March 8, 2010.

14^ "Data Center Risk Index 2013." Cushman & Wakefield , May 17, 2013.

15^ “Global Internet Geography – Asia.” TeleGeography. Q2 2013.

16^ “Global Internet Geography IP Transit Pricing.” Q2 2013, TeleGeography.

17^ Except Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.

18^ Internet Geography Q2 2013 edition, TeleGeography.

19^ “An In-Depth Study on the Broadband Infrastructure in the ASEAN-9 Region.” Terabit Consulting, August 2013.

20^ “An In-Depth Study on the Broadband Infrastructure in the ASEAN-9 Region.” Terabit Consulting, August 2013.

21^ “Myanmar must restore its credibility along Internet.” Abu Saeed Khan, LIRNEasia. August 5, 2013.

22^ “Myanmar Internet Disruptions.” Doug Madory, Renesys Corp. August 13, 2013.

23^ “Using Global Content Balancing to Solve the Broadband Penetration Problem in the Developing World: Case Study, India.” Ashwin Gumaste, Prasad Gokhale, and Tamal Das, Indian Institute of Technology. M. K. Purohit and Peeyush Agrawal, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL). IEEE Communications Magazine. May 2012.

24^ “Consultation Paper on Access Facilitation Charges and Co-location Charges at Cable Landing Stations.” TRAI, March 22, 2012.

25^ “THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION CABLE LANDING STATIONS ACCESS FACILITATION CHARGES AND CO-LOCATION CHARGES REGULATIONS, 2012 (No. 27 of 2012).” TRAI, December 21, 2012.

26^ “Internet Infrastructure: Virtual meets Reality.” James Cowie, CTO, Renesys Corp., European Peering Forum, Reykjavik, Iceland. September 11, 2013.

27^ “You’ve been cut, so what?” Infographic: Ciena GeoMesh, Ciena Corporation.

28^ BBC, “Asia communications hit by quake”, December 27, 2006.

29^ “Japan Quake.” Jim Cowie, Renesys Corporation. Mar 11, 2011.

30^ “Japan quake hits cables, operators.” Melissa Chua. telecomasia.net, March 14, 2011.

31^ “Saboteurs may have cut Mideast telecom cables: UN agency.” AFP. February 18, 2008.

32^ “Egypt arrests as undersea internet cable cut off Alexandria.” BBC online. March 27, 2013.

33^ Press release: “Fujitsu and NEC Complete Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE)”. Fujitsu Limited and NEC Corporation. February 19, 2013.

34^ “Asia’s Connectivity Patterns Shift as Carriers Become Less Dependent on U.S.” TeleGeography Insider. October 2013.

35^ “Global Bandwidth Research Service Europe-Asia.” TeleGeography 2013.

36^ “Will Iran Follow Sudan in Leaving the Internet?” Jim Cowie, Relesys Corp. September 26, 2013.

37^ “Gulf States Turn to Iran, Russia for Internet.” Jim Cowie, Relesys Corp. April 22, 2013.

38^ “Global telcos extend network connectivity with ‘Bay of Bengal Gateway’ system.” Moneylife, April 13, 2013.

39^ “Europe emerges as global internet hub.” TeleGeography. September 18, 2013.

40^ “Waves of change on the horizon in our optical industry.” Tom Mock, Ciena Corporation. June 10, 2013.

41^ “Case Study - Korea: Opportunities for BB Connectivity in APAC.” Ki-young, Ko. September 24, 2013.

42^ “UN recognition of the problems of land-locked developing countries.” UNCTAD website.

43^ “Measuring the Information Society 2013, Table 2.1.” ITU, October 7, 2013.

44^ “China Promotes Eurasia Network Integration.” Winston Qiu, Submarine Cable Networks, September 5 2013.

45^ "2012 Internet access affordability in the Pacific Islands". Network Strategies.

46^ “Fulfilling the Promise – Innovative Satellite Capacity for the Pacific's.” APT/ITU Pacific Forum 2013. Apia, Samoa. April 22, 2013.

LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka Institute for Development Administration

Malalasekera Mavatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka

Team Leader: +94 (0) 77.735.2361, asia@lirne.net

LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka Institute for Development Administration

Malalasekera Mavatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka

Team Leader: +94 (0) 77.735.2361, asia@lirne.net
LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka Institute for Development Administration

Malalasekera Mavatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka

Team Leader: +94 (0) 77.735.2361, asia@lirne.net

LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka Institute for Development Administration

Malalasekera Mavatha, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka

Team Leader: +94 (0) 77.735.2361, asia@lirne.net

LIRNEasia, 12, Balcombe Place, Colombo 00800, Sri Lanka

v: +94 (0)11 267 1160 | f: +94 (0)11 267 5212 | info@lirneasia.net

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